The 5 Things High Performers NEVER Say

Jake Humphrey (0:03)

Hey, welcome along to another episode of High Performance. Today's episode, Damian, I'm looking forward to this, because we're talking about the five things that high performers never say. And we've obviously heard hundreds of high performers say thousands of things. So why is it so important that people tune in to this, listen, and really take careful note of the things that the high performers that we've met have never said?

Damian Hughes (0:26)

Well, there's that old saying that your thoughts become your beliefs, your beliefs then become your actions, and your actions ultimately determine your results. So if we start by how we think and therefore how we choose to talk about it, that can be a really easy way in of starting to get things to improve, make things better, improve relationships.

I remember years ago, somebody saying to me that, he said, oh, how are you? I said, I'm tired. He said, why don't you ask for more energy? So rather than say I'm tired, I could do with a bit more energy. So you say what you do want, rather than describe what you don't want, which is feeling tired.

It sounds like a bit of a trick, but the reality is, why would I not say it? Why wouldn't I focus on what I do want rather than what I don't? So if we start unpicking it, we'll see that there's patterns. We've done nearly 500 interviews. We see lots of patterns. I bet you get it all the time, where people go, what have they got in common?

Keely Hodgkinson (1:22)

That's one thing that you've done 500 interviews.

Jake Humphrey (1:25)

That's why everyone's tuning in to this episode. Because they're like, what can I learn from these guests?

Damian Hughes (1:29)

Yeah, so we're always looking to almost distill down all these amazing people's experience into something that unites us, some common ground that we can find. And I think having a look at something like this, that we all talk, but then working about how do we control the language that we use that drives our thoughts and our behaviors is a brilliant topic.

Jake Humphrey (1:49)

Please make sure that you like, share and subscribe to this episode as we make our way through, particularly if you're enjoying it. And the reason why we decided to do this is we did an episode, the five habits of every high performer that we've met. And that episode went off the charts. It was ridiculous, so popular.

Louis Moody, who came in recently, said that he listened to it. And I think if you've got someone in Louis' position who's got some serious challenges in his life at the moment, but also spent his life at the top of an elite environment, if he's listening, you're doing something right. Jacqueline Louis said, I love the episode about the five habits of high performers. So much work must have been put into it. Five minutes of prep, Damian. That's how we roll. The Pedrero says, great content, Jake and Damian. That ending inspired. I'm glad you're a regular part of my life.

Damian Hughes (2:37)

Oh, that's lovely.

Jake Humphrey (2:37)

Isn't it nice? And it is nice that people keep coming back to high performance again and again. And I think the reason why I was keen to have this conversation about the things that high performers never say is, I definitely thought growing up that high performance people, that high achievement people, that people who are particularly successful or particularly happy, that they just sort of had access to stuff that people like I would never have access to. But the more we speak to the people on this podcast, the more that it becomes obvious that actually, as you've already said, it's habits, it's small steps in the right direction. It is realizing that your entire life is built up of doing small things well and avoiding the small things that kind of erode your ability to be impactful. And I think that's what these five things that high performers never say, it focuses on the fact that if you do do these things and you do say these things, it's not going to transform your life instantly, but it is going to slowly erode your confidence and your belief and your impact. And therefore, because it's eroded those things, you don't achieve what you wanted. And then all that does is reinforce the belief that you're not good enough.

And it's actually not true. Like you should listen to the five habits of high performance, but then you should also listen to this and make sure that you're not doing these things.

So should we get to the first one?