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Episode 776 · May 15, 2023

High Performance Habits: Why Alignment Beats Achievement

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George Wright III opens this episode of The Daily Mastermind with a question most high achievers never think to ask: what if achievement itself is not the problem? Drawing on Brendon Burchard's book *High Performance Habits*, George unpacks a counterintuitive truth that applies to anyone chasing bigger goals. If you keep hitting ceilings, the issue almost certainly lies in alignment, not ambition.

Why Achievement Is Not Your Problem

Brendon Burchard's central thesis is that most high achievers are already wired to pursue success. That drive is not the bottleneck. George explains it clearly: alignment of your thoughts and behaviors is the real key.

Achievement is not your actual problem. Alignment is your problem. Alignment of your thoughts and behaviors is the key.

Whether you are already achieving at a high level or pushing to reach a new one, the question to ask is whether what you are chasing actually aligns with what matters most to you. Achievement without alignment produces results that feel hollow. Getting that alignment right is what produces sustained, meaningful success.

Why Certainty Is the Enemy of Growth

One of the most striking ideas George highlights from Burchard's work is that certainty is the enemy of growth. This runs against the instinct to want predictability and control. But certainty means you already know what to expect, which means you are operating inside your comfort zone. And real growth, in your life or your business, always lives outside of it.

The solution is not to chase chaos. It is to replace certainty with curiosity and confidence.

Confidence will only come to you with uncertainty. How do you develop confidence? It's by persistently going through adversity, persistently going through things that you cannot predict.

High performers do not eliminate uncertainty; they learn to operate within it, staying curious and building confidence through repeated encounters with the unknown.

The Qualities That Set High Performers Apart

George walks through several qualities that define high performers, drawn from Burchard's research:

  • More successful, less stressed. High performers do not avoid stress; they are simply less affected by it. The difference is how they interpret it: as an opportunity to grow rather than an overwhelming threat.
  • Confident despite adversity. When you accept that you will find a way through whatever comes, confidence becomes a default rather than a luxury. Looking back at everything you have already survived is the proof.
  • Passionate about their work. Passion is what carries you through low-energy, low-motivation days. Finding the intersection of your unique talents and your genuine enthusiasm is what makes high performance sustainable.
  • Focused on who they are becoming. Rather than measuring themselves against current strengths and limitations, high performers look ahead to who they are growing into.
  • Uniquely productive. They keep the main thing the main thing, resisting the pull of distractions and circumstances that do not serve their core goals.

How High Performers Develop Skills and People

George draws an important distinction: high performers develop their own skills, but they also invest in the people around them. Scaling success requires both. Identifying what skills you need to reach your goals and building them deliberately is one side of the equation. Investing in others, building the people around you, is what allows success to compound and grow beyond what any individual can accomplish alone.

The Six Habits of High Performers

Burchard identifies six habits common to high performers, which George introduces as a framework to build on. The first three are internal habits: seeking clarity, generating energy, and raising necessity. The second three are external: increasing productivity, developing influence, and demonstrating courage.

You don't just have courage. You have to act courage.

That last point lands with particular force. Courage is not a feeling you wait for. It is something you demonstrate through action, even when certainty is absent and the outcome is unclear.

Action Steps

  • Audit your current goals against what truly matters to you. If your achievements feel empty, the gap is likely alignment, not effort.
  • Identify one area where you have been seeking certainty. Replace that certainty with a question: what could you learn if you leaned into this uncertainty instead?
  • Recall past adversity you have already overcome. Use that evidence to build confidence that you will navigate whatever comes next.
  • Determine which of the six habits (clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, courage) needs the most attention right now, and commit to one daily practice around it.
  • Think about one person in your life you could invest in this week, developing their potential rather than relying solely on your own output.

High achievement is within your reach. The path there runs through alignment, curiosity, and the willingness to act with courage even when you cannot predict the outcome. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

all right welcome back to the daily mastermind your daily dose of inspiration motivation and education my name is George Wright III I am your host and over the past 25 years I've had the privilege of growing brands and businesses for some of the biggest thought leaders and celebrities experts in the world and I created the daily mastermind so that I could share some of these lessons that I've learned with individuals entrepreneurs and high achievers just like you in order to help you to unleash your true potential and live your best life but to create your best life you've got to focus on growing all aspects of your life including your your mind your body your spirit your money business and lifestyle and the daily mastermind is going to help you to do that so some days I'll provide just a 5 10 minute episode and other days in fact coming up over the coming weeks I'll be interviewing guests that are experts in these key areas that I talk about in order to kind of give you the behind-the-scenes stories strategies and inspiration that I believe will help you and inspire you to create greatness in your life and in your business and today I want to talk to you about the habits of high performers and in order to do this I want to talk to and kind of go back to one of my favorite books high performance habits by Brendon Burchard and but before I do that let me give you the quote of the day from Aristotle. The quote is, what we repeatedly do, we are, I'm sorry, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit. So think about that for a minute. We are what we repeatedly do. So excellence is not an act, but a habit. And I really believe that's a great quote for you to start your week with. So let's talk a little bit about High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard. And I don't know if you've read this book or not. It's an amazing book, super easy to read, but very, very packed with strategies and tactics. And it talks about how extraordinary people became extraordinary. And there's just a couple of key thoughts I want to kind of share with you before we get into the book itself. And maybe I'll do this over a couple of episodes this week. But one of the things I really, really loved in the very beginning, Brennan talks about how achievement is not your problem. And what I mean by that is most of us, if you're listening to this podcast, most of us are high achievers. We're looking for success, success in our life, in our business, in everything that we do. I mean, that's kind of how we're wired and it's one of the reasons you're listening to this podcast But we are constantly looking for ways to achieve at a higher level and what Brennan talks about is that achievement is not your actual problem Alignment is your problem and what do I mean by that? Well alignment of your thoughts and behaviors is the key that's what that's what's gonna get you achievement. So achieving success is not the problem that you're lacking. Whether you're achieving now or not achieving and you're wanting to go to another level achievement is not the problem. Alignment with the right thoughts and behaviors is the key. You know, because keep in mind, you know, achievement isn't always, when you do achieve certain things, it doesn't always mean that's what's most important. What is achievement if it's not along the lines of the most important things that you want? So achievement isn't necessarily your problem. Alignment is. And the other thing he talks about is that certainty, and this is a big one. I think you really need to think about this. Certainty is the enemy of growth. Certainty is your enemy of growth because having certainty means that you're able to predict what's happening and that you're in your comfort zone and that you know what it is to expect. And you know as well as I do that the growth that you want to achieve, that growth in your life, the growth in your business, everything, it's all going to be outside your comfort zone. So what you have to do is you have to learn to replace certainty with curiosity and confidence. Sometimes we talk about wanting more uncertainty in our life, but we don't necessarily know what that means. Well, it means replace certainty because high performers replace certainty with curiosity and confidence. And the thing to keep in mind is that confidence will only come to you with uncertainty. Well, how do you develop confidence? It's by persistently going through adversity. It's persistently going through things that you cannot predict. So confidence will come with uncertainty. So let me give you a couple of the qualities of high performers. What is it that makes a high performer? What are the common traits of high performers? And I want you to think about this because obviously you want to align your thoughts with what it takes to be a high performer, to be able to create more success, more fulfillment, more happiness, the life that you were meant to live. So what are some of the qualities of high performers? Well, and this first one really kind of, it didn't make sense to me at first, but high performers are more successful, but less stressed. More successful but less stressed I thought to myself how can you be achieving such high levels of high performance without the stress And I think the subtle difference here is that high performers are more successful but less stressed, meaning that doesn't mean that they don't have stress. It means that they are affected less by the stress, that they not look forward to stress, but they can allow more stress into their life without it affecting them. And I think it's how view stress. When you view stress as a bad thing versus a good thing, when you don't view stress as a as an opportunity to grow and you view it as just an overwhelming thing, then it affects you more. So high performers are more successful but less stressed. They also love challenges. They're more confident despite adversity. Now that's a big factor when you can learn to be confident despite adversity. How do you do that? Well it's very simple. When you have accepted the fact that no matter what comes your way you will find a way to overcome it you're gonna be more confident despite the adversity no matter how big the obstacle is that comes your way as long as you can and all of us can do this as long as you can look back and realize that no matter what's happened to you in your life you found a way to make it through then you can adopt that confidence that despite adversity you can remain confident High performers are also healthier, happier, and more admired. High performers are passionate about their work. I think that's a key factor. You've got to learn to find your unique talents, but these are the things that you're excellent and passionate about because that's what's going to push you through times when you don't have the energy, the motivation, when you don't feel as confident. Passion for what you do will help you to do that. High performers also are assertive and and they see beyond their own strengths. So high performers look to who they're becoming rather than who they think they are. How many times have you been in the situations where you have felt, I'm not enough, I don't have enough of the talents and things? Well, that's when you're focused on who you are, not who you're becoming. So high performers, they focus beyond their strengths into who they're becoming. And they're also uniquely productive. What do I mean by uniquely productive. Well, high performers do a very good job of keeping the main thing the main thing. So many times we get distracted by all the things in our life, the circumstances, the things we can't predict, the uncertainty. But when you can learn, uniquely learn to stay productive by keeping the main thing the main thing, you're going to be and have the characteristics of a high performer Then the other thing is that high performers they develop skills They look to see what it is they need to achieve the goals in their life and they develop those skills But more importantly, high performers also develop people. Because remember, in order to scale your success or your life, you've got to be able to surround yourself with the right people. And when you can build people, that becomes a way to be able to scale your success. So developing your skills is one thing. Developing people is another. So these are just a few of the thoughts that are setting up the book and the ideas and the habits of the six habits of high performers. Let me give you real quick before we end today the six habits that Brendan Burchard talks about in his book. So it'll kind of set you up for this. and I'll try to feed these back into the podcast. We'll kind of go through some of these later on, but here are the six habits that are common to high performers. Number one, they seek clarity. They seek clarity. Number two, they generate energy. They generate energy. Number three, they raise necessity. They raise necessity. Now, those first three are all part of internal high performers' habits, right? Seeking clarity and energy and necessity. And then you've got a few external ones. Number four is increased productivity. High performers have a habit of increased productivity. Number five, they develop influence. High performers develop influence. And number six, they demonstrate courage. I like how he says demonstrate courage. You don't just have courage, you have to act courage. So these are the six habits of high performers. I'm going to actually cover some of these because I think it's something that'll help you a lot in your week as we also highlight some of these guests and interviews later during the week. but I appreciate you joining me. I look forward to helping you. We've got a new newsletter that's coming out actually that has the podcast episodes, the quote of the week, sort of like a highlight of everything that's happened during the week, whether it be the events, the academy, the podcast, the blog. And so I will get you some more details on that. But if you get on our text list, we'll just text every week on Friday. We'll text you out the newsletter. So for now, don't miss any episodes, hit like and subscribe and do me a favor and share this episode with someone that you know so that we can share the message and we can help to inspire and motivate and educate everyone around us. Once again, this is George Wright III. This has been The Daily Mastermind. Have an amazing day and I will talk with you more tomorrow.

About the host
George Wright III, host of The Daily Mastermind

George Wright III

George Wright III is an entrepreneur, investor, and the host of The Daily Mastermind. Over more than two decades he has founded and scaled several multimillion-dollar companies and built a renowned seminar business that put some of the world's biggest names and brands on stage. With 25+ years across marketing, sales, and executive leadership, he's made a career of turning bold ideas into results — and momentum into lasting growth.

Today his mission is singular: empower driven entrepreneurs everywhere to master their mindset, unlock their potential, and live their ultimate destiny. Through The Daily Mastermind, George shares the Prosperity Principles and strategies that help people create massive change — in their business and in their life.

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