High Performance Habits by Brendan Burchard

I finished this book in July 2025. I recommend this book 10/10.

Why you should read this book:

This is the book that gives you the recipe for operating at a super high efficiency level. It includes Performance Prompts that will help you map out how to become a high performer in the workplace and at home.

Get your copy here.

🚀 The book in three sentences

1. Adjust your mindset to who you want to become and how you want to be around other people.

2. Keep yourself and others honest as you move towards your goals.

3. Be practical—map your five major moves—and embrace the suck. Also, don't forget to celebrate yourself.

📝 My notes and thoughts

• P23. When you knock on the door of opportunity, do not be surprised that it is Work who answers.

• P37. If you want to reach higher levels of performance in anything you do, you must consistently do the following:

  • Seek clarity on who you want to be, how you want to interact with others, what you want, and what will bring you the greatest meaning. As every project or major initiative begins, you ask questions such as "What kind of person do I want to be while I'm doing this?" "How should I treat others?" "What are my intentions and objectives?" "What can I focus on that will bring me a sense of connection and fulfillment?" High performers ask these types of questions not only at the beginning of the endeavor but consistently throughout. They don't just "get clarity" once and develop a mission statement that lasts the rest of the time; they consistently seek clarity again and again as times change and as they take on new projects or enter new social situations. This kind of routine self-monitoring is one of the hallmarks of their success.

  • Generate energy so that you can maintain focus, effort, and well-being. To stay on your A game, you'll need to actively care for your mental stamina, physical energy, and positive emotions in very specific ways.

  • Raise the necessity for exceptional performance. This means actively tapping into the reasons you absolutely must perform well. This necessity is based on a mix of your internal standards (e.g., your identity, beliefs, values, or expectations for excellence) and external demands (e.g., social obligations, competition, public commitments, deadlines) It's about always knowing your why and stoking that fire all the time so you feel the needed drive or pressure to get at it.

  • Increase productivity in your primary field of interest. Specifically, focus on prolific quality output (PQO) in the area in which you want to be known and to drive impact. You'll also have to minimize distractions (including opportunities) that steal your attention from creating PQO.

  • Develop influence with those around you. It will make you better at getting people to believe in and support your efforts and ambitions. Unless you consciously develop a positive support network, major achievements over the long haul are all but impossible.

  • Demonstrate courage by expressing your ideas, taking bold action, and standing up for yourself and others, even in the face of fear, uncertainty, threat, or changing conditions. Courage is not an occasional act, but a trait of choice and will.

• P65. Be more intentional about who you want to become. Have a vision beyond your current circumstances. Imagine your best future self, and start acting like that person today.

• P67. Kate was generally confident, but the issue was she had stopped envisioning a future Kate to grow into. That's what was hurting her: no vision, no enthusiasm. So I had her put her three aspirational words into her phone as an alarm label that went off three times per day. This means that as Kate went about her day, an alarm would go off and she'd see her words on her phone to remind her who she was and could become. Now it is your turn:

  • Describe how you've perceived yourself in the following situations over the past several months—with your significant other, at work, with the kids or team, in social situations with strangers.

  • Now ask, "Is that who I really see myself being in the future?" How would my future self look, feel, and behave differently in those situations?

  • If you could describe yourself in just three aspirational words—words that would sum up who you are at your best in the future—what would those words be? Why are those words meaningful to you? Once you find your words, put them in your phone as an alarm label that goes off several times per day.

• P68. When was the last time you asked the questions below?

  • Before you went into your last meeting, did you think about how you wanted to interact with each person in the meeting?

  • Before your last phone call, did you think about the tone you would choose to use with the other person?

  • On your last night out with your partner or friends, did you set an intention for the energy you wanted to create?

  • When you were dealing with that last conflict, did you think about your values and how you wanted to come across to the other person when you talked to them?

  • Do you actively think about how to be a better listener, how to generate positive emotions with others, and how you can be a good role model?

• P70. To help Kate change and improve her relationships, I had her imagine in advance her interactions with people and then live into those intentions each day. She didn't need more time or to wait one more day. It wasn't about quantity, but about quality. So I asked Kate to try this activity, which I recommend you try, too:

  • Write down each person's name in your immediate family and team.

  • Imagine that in twenty years, each person is describing why they love and respect you. If each person could say just three words to summarize the interactions they had with you in life, what would you want those three words to be?

  • Next time you're with each of those people, approach your time with them as an opportunity to demonstrate those three qualities. Have those words as the goal and start living into those qualities. Challenge yourself to be that person now. This will bring life back into your relationships.

• P71. It turns out that executives who score higher on the HPI tend to have more blocks of time already scheduled for learning than do their peers with lower scores. There's an hour blocked out here for taking an online training, another there for executive coaching, and another for reading, and yet another for a mastery-oriented hobby (piano, language learning, cooking class, and so on). They've built a curriculum for themselves and are actively engaged in learning. What's clearly linking all these blocks of scheduled time is the desire to develop specific skill sets. The online training is about how to code or manage finances better; the executive coaching is focused on developing listening skills; the reading focuses on a specific skill they've been trying to master, such as strategy, listening in meetings, or a story development; the hobby is something they take seriously—they aren't doing it just for pleasure, per se, but to actively develop mastery.

• P74. You can follow Kate's lead. Try this:

  • Think about your PFI (primary field of interest) and write down three skills that make people successful in that field.

  • Under each skill, write down what you will do to develop it. Will you read, practice, get a coach, or go to a training? When? Set up a plan to develop those skills, put it in your calendar, and stay consistent.

  • Now think about your PFI and write down three skills that you will need in order to succeed in that field five to ten years from now. In other words, try to imagine the future. What new skill sets will you likely need then? Keep those skills on your radar, and start developing them sooner rather than later.

• P77. Differentiation allows high performers to look at their industry, their career, and even their relationships for what makes them unique. They want to stand out for who they are and to add more value than others do. Excellence comes from an internal standard that asks, "How can I deliver beyond what's expected?" For high performers, the question "How can I serve with excellence?" gets more attention than perhaps any other.

• P85. Clearly, if you want a positive life, you would do well to summon as much enthusiasm as possible. It was these findings that inspired me to ask myself this question every morning in the shower: "What can I get excited or enthusiastic about today?" That simple question has changed the way I walk into each day. Try it.

• P86. When your efforts correspond with one of your primary passions, lead to personal or professional growth, and make a clear and positive contribution to others, you tend to call those efforts satisfying. Passion + Growth + Contribution = Personal Satisfaction.

• P100. From now on, as you move from one major activity to another, try this:

  • Close your eyes for the next minute or two.

  • Repeat the word "release" in your mind over and over. As you do, command your body to release all the tension in your shoulders, in your neck, in your face, and jaw. Release the tension in your back and your legs. Release the tension in your mind and spirit. If this is hard, just focus on each part of your body, breathe deeply, and repeat the word "release" in your mind. This doesn't have to take long—just a minute or two repeating the word "release."

  • When you feel you've released some tension—and it doesn't have to be all the tension in your life!—move to the next part: SET INTENTION. This means think about what you want to feel and achieve in the next activity you're about to take on when you open your eyes. Ask, "What energy do I want to bring into this next activity? How can I do this next activity with excellence? How can I enjoy the process?" These don't have to be the exact questions you ask, but these are the kinds of questions that will prompt your mind to be more present in the next activity.

• P105.  What specifically brought joy into their lives (and what didn't)? And what habits, if any, did they deliberately make themselves practice in order to stay in joyful states for longer? What emerged from their responses is that high performers tend to follow similar habits every day. They tend to...:

  • Prime the emotions they want to experience, in advance of key events (or of the day in general). They think about how they want to feel, and ask themselves questions, or practice visualizations, that generate those feelings. (This aligns well with "focus on the feeling" from the previous chapter.)

  • Anticipate positive outcomes from their actions. They're optimistic and clearly believe that their actions will be rewarded.

  • Imagine possible stressful situations and how their best self might gracefully handle them. As much as they anticipate positive outcomes, they're realistic about hitting snags, and they prepare themselves for difficulties.

  • Seek to insert appreciation, surprise, wonder, and challenge into their day.

  • Steer social interactions toward positive emotions and experiences. They are what one respondent called "conscious goodness spreaders."

  • Reflect regularly on all that they're grateful for.

• P107. Every morning in the shower, I ask myself three questions to prime my mind for a positive day:

  • What can I be excited about today?

  • What or who might trip me up or cause stress, and how can I respond in a positive way, from my highest self?

  • Who can I surprise today with a thank-you, a gift, or a moment of appreciation?

• P108. I decided to develop a series of triggers that would remind me to steer social interactions toward positive emotions and experiences.

  • The first trigger was what I call a "notification trigger." I put the phrase BRING THE JOY into my phone as an alarm label. I set the alarm for three different times throughout the day, and I set the text for the label of the alarm to read BRING THE JOY! I could be in a meeting, on a call, or writing an email, and all of a sudden my phone would vibrate as the alarm went off and display those words.

  • The second trigger I set was what I call a "door frame trigger." Every time I walk through a doorway, I say to myself, "I will find the good in this room. I'm entering this space a happy man, ready to serve."This practice helps me get present, look for the good in others, and prepare my mind to help people.

  • The third trigger I set up was a "waiting trigger." Whenever I'm waiting in line to buy something, I ask myself, "What level of presence and vibration do I feel right now, on a scale of 1 through 10? By asking myself this question, I'm checking in on my emotional state, scoring it, and choosing whether it's sufficient to how I want to feel and how I want to live my life. Often, when I feel at a level 5 or below, my mind snaps to attention and says, "Hey, man, you're lucky to be alive. Raise your energy and enjoy life!"

  • The fourth trigger I set up was a "touch trigger." Whenever I'm introduced to someone, they get a hug. Not because I'm a hugger. I started this trigger because I read so much research about how touch is vital to well-being and happiness.

  • The fifth trigger I created was the "gift trigger." Whenever something positive happens around me, I say, "What a gift!" I did this because so many high performers talked about how they felt a sense of reverence or sacredness in everyday life. Sometimes, this comes from a spiritual place—they feel joy because they feel blessed by God. Sometimes, it comes from a place of awe and wonder about the gifts in their life as a "grateful guilt"—they feel they've been given too much, too many opportunities, and so they deeply feel a responsibility to earn those blessings by giving back.

  • The sixth trigger was a "stress trigger." My brain injury was causing me to always feel hurried, almost panicked. And then one day, I decided that hurry and stress were no longer going to be part of my life. Stress is self-created, so I decided to stop manufacturing it. I always believed that we can choose an internal calm and joy even amid chaos, so I decided to do just that. Whenever things felt like they were getting out of hand, I'd stand up, take ten deep breaths, and ask, "What's the positive thing I can focus on and the next right action of integrity I should take now?" Over time, this practice took the power away from the stressful and hurried feelings caused by my injury.

• P112. To complement the triggers, I began an evening journaling activity in which I wrote down three things that made me feel good during the day. Then I took just a few moments to close my eyes and actually relive them. I put myself right back into the situation I experienced. I see what I saw, hear what I heard, feel what I felt. Often, in reflection, I appreciate the moment with even more care and focus than when it happened. I laugh harder. I feel my heart beating faster. I cry more. I feel an ever greater sense of wonder, contentment, thankfulness, meaning, or appreciation for life.

• P146. If you add to that accountability—when people know that you are responsible for helping them—necessity becomes stronger yet. A tremendous amount of research shows that people tend to maintain motivation, give more effort, and achieve higher performance when they are held accountable for their outcomes, are evaluated more often, and have the opportunity to demonstrate their expertise or gain respect from those they serve. In other words, if you owe it to someone to do well, and you feel that doing well will exhibit your expertise, then you'll feel a great necessity to perform at higher levels. For example, when we are evaluated more and held accountable for team performance, we work harder and better.

• P149. A false deadline is usually a poorly conceived activity with a due date that is someone's preference, not a true need with real consequences if it's not met. It's what one of my clients, a Green Beret, calls a "circle jerk fire drill." Here is how this distinction between real and fake deadlines plays out in my life. Whenever someone emails me a request, with or without a due date, I reply this way:

  • Thanks for your request. Can you give me the "real deadline" date for this? That means the date when the world will explode, your career will be destroyed, or a domino effect leading to both your and my ultimate demise will truly begin. Any date before that is your preference, and with respect, by the time you've sent me this request, I have 100 preference requests in front of you. So, to serve you best, I have to put you in ranking order with the real deadlines. Can you please let me know that drop-dead date and why, specifically, it occurs then? From there. I'll decide the priority and coordinate appropriately with you and, as always, serve with excellence. Thanks!—Brendon.

• P152. To help you tap into both the internal and the external demands of necessity, try this simple practice. Set a "desk trigger" for yourself. From now on, whenever you sit down at your desk—that's the trigger action—ask:

  • "Who needs me on my A game the most right now?"

• P155. According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow happens when several of these elements are in play:

  • You have goals that are clear and challenging yet attainable.

  • Strong concentration and focused attention are required.

  • The thing you're doing is intrinsically rewarding.

  • You lose self-consciousness a bit and feel serene.

  • Time stops—you feel so focused on the present that you lose track of time.

  • You're getting immediate feedback on your performance.

  • There's a balance between your skill level and the challenge presented. You know that what you're doing is doable, even if difficult.

  • You have a sense of personal control over the situation and the outcome.

  • You stop thinking about your physical needs.

  • You have the ability to focus completely on the activity at hand.

• P180. When someone says to me that work-life balance is impossible, I remind them that human beings have crossed oceans, summited the highest mountains, built skyscrapers, landed on the moon, and guided vehicles beyond the solar system. What we are capable of is remarkable, and what we will attempt is constrained only by our beliefs. And so I say to you that if you believe a better work-life balance is impossible, you have already lost the fight. I also remind many of my clients who have given up on this issue that they simply never tried as hard to find balance as they have tried in other efforts. They'll spend ten months planning the achievement of a work project, but not a single day planning more balance in their upcoming week. If you won't focus as attentively on balancing your life as on achieving any other project, then you've settled the matter. In that case, don't point an accusing finger at the entire work-life balance conversation; point the finger at the person looking at you from the mirror, who simply refused to try. If we can keep an open mind in this discussion, we might realize that a major problem is the way we approach work-life balance in the first place. The great mistake most people make is to think of balance in terms of evenly distributed hours.

• P181. That's why I think there's a better approach to thinking about work-life balance. Instead of trying to balance hours, try to balance happiness or progress in your major life arenas. Let me elaborate. When most people feel that they're "out" of balance, it's because one area of their life became more intense, important, and time-consuming than other areas. They got so obsessed about work that they let their health or their marriage slide. Or they got so focused on a family issue that their work suffered. The solution is to keep perspective in life by keeping an eye on the quality or progress of the major life arenas. A simple weekly review of what we're after in the major areas of life helps us rebalance or at least plan for more balance.

• P183. The good news is that if burnout is often just a feeling of fatigue, there's also a simpler fix. If we can just give you a short mental and physical refresh/rest every hour, then you can dramatically improve how you feel, and you'll sense a significant improvement in your work-life balance. This means that for most people, they didn't need to quit their job because of work-life balance problems; they just needed to change what they did on the job so that they felt more energetically balanced. Happily, that's easier than you may think.

• P196. Think of each major move as a big bucket of activities, a project. These big five projects that move you toward achieving your dream can then be broken into deliverables, deadlines, and activities. Once you're clear on these things, put them into your calendar, scheduling the bulk of your time in protected blocks during which you do nothing but make progress toward the activity that the specific block is dedicated to. So, if I show up at your house and say, "Show me your calendar," I should readily see the major projects you are working toward. If I can't discern from your weekly and monthly calendar what major moves you are working toward, then you're not optimizing your time, and you're at risk of getting sucked into a life of reaction and distraction. That, or you're just going to have to take years getting a result that others could do in months.

• P202. It doesn't matter whether you know how to achieve your Five Moves at first. The important thing is that for every major goal you have, you figure out the Five Moves. If you don't know the moves, you lose.

  • Decide what you want.

  • Determine the Five Major Moves that will help you leap toward that goal.

  • Do deep work on each of the five major moves—at least 60 percent of your workweek going to these efforts—until they are complete.

  • Designate all else as a distraction, tasks to delegate, or things to do in blocks of time you've allocated in the remaining 40 percent of your time.

• P208. Repetition rarely leads to high performance. And that's why it's important to understand "progressive mastery." These are the steps to progressive mastery:

  • Determine a skill that you want to master.

  • Set specific stretch goals on your path to developing that skill.

  • Attach high levels of emotion and meaning to your journey and your results.

  • Identify the factors critical to success, and develop your strengths in those areas (and fix your weaknesses with equal fervor).

  • Develop a visualization that clearly imagines what success and failure look like. Schedule challenging practices developed by experts or through careful thought.

  • Measure your progress and get outside feedback.

  • Socialize your learning and efforts by practicing or competing with others.

  • Continue setting higher-level goals so that you keep improving.

  • Teach others what you are learning.

• P213. Life is short. We're only allotted so much time to make our mark. I say that's all the more reason to get focused. Stop producing outputs that don't make your soul sing. Avoid trying to be effective or efficient by doing things that you're not proud of and make no impact. Determine what outputs really matter to you at this stage in your life, chart your five moves to accomplish your big dreams, and go make it happen while getting insanely good at what you do. From there, the world is yours.

• P224. Research shows that influencers understand the power of repetition, so they try multiple times to get their ideas in front of those they hope to influence. The more you ask and share your ideas, the more people become familiar and comfortable with our requests, and the more they start to like the idea. Asking isn't just about making requests to get what you want. If you seek greater influence with other people, learn to ask them a tremendous number of questions that elicit what they think, feel, want, need, and aspire to. Great leaders ask a lot of questions. Remember, people support what they create. When people get to contribute ideas, they have mental skin in the game. They want to back the ideas they helped shape. They feel that they're part of the process, not a cog or some faceless minion. It's universally agreed that leaders who ask questions and get those around them to brainstorm the path ahead are more effective than "dictator" leaders who just push their demands and requests on others.

• P230. When I work with leaders, I'm consistently telling them they should always communicate how their people should be thinking about themselves as individual contributors, about their competitors, and about the overall marketplace. I mean that literally—in every email to the full team, in every all-hands meeting, in every investor call, in every media appearance. In the all-hands meeting: "This is how we should be thinking about ourselves if we're going to win. If we're going to compete, this is how we should be thinking about our competitors. If we're going to change the world, this is how we should be thinking about the world and the future." Take a few moments now and think of someone you want to influence. How can you shape their thinking? Begin by identifying how you want to influence them. What do you want them to do? Then know your responses to these questions before you meet with that person:

  • How do you want them to think about themselves?

  • How do you want them to think about other people?

  • How do you want them to think about the world at large?

• P240. For leaders, I suggest the direct approach of asking people to think of how they can challenge themselves in future scenarios. Ask,. "What kind of person do you want to be remembered as? What would life look like if you gave your all? Where are you making excuses, and how might life return out differently if you showed up stronger?" If you observed a high performing leader in a team meeting, you've probably noticed how often they suggest how the team should be working together. They say things like:

  • "Listen to one another more."

  • "Show each other more respect."

  • "Support each other more."

  • "Spend more time with each other."

  • "Give each other more feedback."

• P241. High performers challenge individuals specifically. They go desk to desk and challenge each person on their team. They adjust the level of challenge they issue to each person they are leading. There's no one-size-fits-all approach to pushing people to contribute. That's how you know you're working with a high-performing leader: They'll meet you where you are, speak your language, ask you to help move the entire team toward a better future, in your own unique way.

• P262. The more we do something successfully, the more comfortable we become with it. That's why it's so important for you to start living a more courageous life now. The more action you take facing fear, expressing yourself, and helping others, the easier and less stressful these actions become. But when you face down your fear, something else is also going on. Courage, it turns out, is contagious, just like panic or cowardice. If your kids see you fearful of life, they'll feel it—and they'll model it. And it's the same for your team or whoever else you lead and serve. Demonstrating more courage is a gateway for our society to develop greater virtue.

• P266. If your future best self—a version of you ten years older, who is even stronger, more capable, and more successful than you imagined yourself to be—showed up on your doorstep today and looked at your current circumstances, what courageous action would that future self advise you to take right away to change your life? How would your future self tell you to live?

• P272. Having that affinity for engagement and action defines part of the high-performance mindset. The difficulties in life that you can't avoid? Engage them wholeheartedly. Even when you feel overwhelmed, choose to go for a walk, focus on your breath, and consider the problem rather than avoid it. Look for the problem in the eye and ask, "What is the next right action for me to take right now?" If you aren't yet ready to take that action, plan. Study. Prepare yourself for when the fog lifts and you are called to lead.

• P279. A successful person fails to achieve the next level of success because they choose to strive in silence. They don't want to share or speak up. They're trying to be "appropriate," "realistic," "level-headed." They're trying to make others "happy" or "comfortable." And so they have these brilliant ideas, and not only do they not share them, they make the most lethal mistake of all: They don't ask for help. If you don't ask for help, the right people can't come into your life. So if the universe isn't giving you what you want, perhaps it's because amid all your distractions and silence, the universe just doesn't know what you're asking for. Recently, I worked with an Olympic gold medalist. I asked, "When did the biggest gains come in your career?" She said, "When I finally started voicing my dreams to do this. Suddenly, people started pointing me in the right direction. They told me what to do, what skills I would need, who I should talk to, what equipment the pros used, and who the best coaches were. I learned that if you open your mouth and shout from the rooftops what you want to do with your life, sure, some village idiots will show up and shout back all the reasons why you can't. But all the village leaders come over and want to help. Life's great that way."

• P288. These questions might spur some brave thinking and action today. Ask them enough, and practice the habits in this chapter, and you'll come to this truth: Deep down, away from all the noise, where love blankets your heart and your dreams lie in wait, you are not afraid:

  • What in my personal life have I avoided doing, which might involve hardship but just might improve my family's lives forever?

  • What could I do at work that would require stepping out on a limb but would also truly change things for the better and help people?

  • What decision could I make that would demonstrate a moral commitment to something higher than myself?

  • How could I bring myself to face a situation that usually makes me nervous or anxious?

  • What change could I make that scares me but will help someone I love?

  • What good thing could I walk away from to advance my life?

  • What have I wanted to say to those close to me, and when and how will I courageously declare that truth?

  • Who needs me, and who will I fight for the rest of this year?

• P301. I've found that the first step is always awareness. You have to be alert and catch yourself when you start thinking you are separate from others for any reason. Second, you need to develop habits that will help you stay humble and open even as you get better at what you do. Humility is a foundational virtue that enables many other virtues to grow. It is associated with positive outcomes like marital fidelity, cooperation, compassion for others, strong social bonds, general group acceptance, optimism, hope, decisiveness, comfort with ambiguity, and openness to experience. It's also tied to our willingness to admit gaps in current knowledge and tendency to feel guilty after wrongdoing.

• P310. Your path ahead doesn't have to feel so negative anymore, and if you allow dissatisfaction to be your approach, your cross, your brand, then odds are, you will soon see your performance lag. We all need the payoff of satisfaction and fulfillment at some point. If you keep cheating yourself of it, then that neglect will be your Achilles' heel. And let's be honest: Perhaps dissatisfaction wasn't really what made you good in the first place. What you are correlating with your success may not be the cause. What if it was an eye towards details, a deep passion, or a hunger to inspire others to grow that really drove you all these years? What if you were simply practicing one of the high-performance habits without knowing it? I ask this because too often we give credit to the forefront negative emotions and experiences in life and miss the real causes of success. It's like when someone says, "I'm successful because I sleep only four hours a night." No, the lack of sleep isn't what made you successful—fifty years of sleep science proves that you were cognitively impaired, not optimized.

• P312. In this moment now, you can breathe deep and finally, after all this time, give yourself love and appreciation. To help you with this journey, try this:

  • Start journaling at the end of each day. Write down three things that went well or better than expected that day. Write about any progress or blessings that you feel grateful for. It's such simple but essential advice to keep a high performer performing high: Start noticing what's going well, appreciate your blessings, enjoy the journey, and record your wins.

  • Get your family or team together once a week for no other reason than to talk about what's working, what people are excited about, and what difference your efforts are making in real people's lives.

  • Start meetings by asking others to share one great thing that has happened that can give the team a sense of joy, pride, and fulfillment.

• P320. To help you discern between the yeses and nos, you have to start thinking much more strategically. Strategic thinking means stripping things down to the essential and planning their accomplishment out over months and years. This is hard, but you have to weigh opportunities differently now, measuring them against a much longer horizon. You can't think just about how flashy something is this month. You have to be executing against a plan—your five moves—that's already in place for the next several months. If the new thing you want to commit to doesn't strategically move you toward your end goals, it must be delayed. Most opportunities in life that are really worthwhile and meaningful will still be here six months from now. If that's hard to believe, it's just because you're new to success. So slow down; say no more often; be more strategic. Don't let obliviousness to what really matters, or reaching for what doesn't, slow down all your hard-won momentum.

• P335. It's also clear that high performers no longer feel as if they were "faking it to make it." Though six of the thirty people I interviewed mentioned that phrase as something they did earlier in their lives or careers, none agreed that they were still "faking it." Instead, high performers seem to wake up each day and have a clear intention of who they really want to be, and then they go out into the world and give that intention real focus and energy. A sense of authenticity, pride, self-trust, and confidence comes from those congruent actions.