10 Key Takeaways from High Performance Academy 2019
We just returned to home after a highly energetic and motivating 4 days at High Performance Academy with Brendon Burchard. Attending a conference on personal productivity like this is inspiring, moving and—more than anything—it lets you see that you are not alone in this space.
Two thousand people came together for HPA2019 from 30 countries representing entrepreneurs, CEOs, students and everything in between. It was clear from the start that we all had a similar goal: We wanted to not only DO better, but we wanted to BE better.
If you’re familiar with Burchard, you know he’s motivational, incredibly practical, and he cuts through the “fluff” to the underlying psychological and sociological issues holding us back. Every night that Gena and I returned to our hotel room (an affordable and quaint Best Western just down the way), we found ourselves talking non-stop about our future and the future of Writing Momentum.
Here are the 12 key takeaways I received from the conference…all which I hope to keep reminding myself in the coming days.
- Write down your goals—and look at them daily. Sure, I’ve been writing down goals since I was a teen. But the idea of looking at them daily…of measuring everything I do by those goals…of making sure my work is congruent with my goals…has escaped me.
- Adopt an ambitious mindset. It’s easy to look at the next step in the road and feel inadequate to get over it. It’s easy to see our own inability as a stopping point. But to the ambitious who have an expectancy that the call God has given them can happen, inability isn’t a stop-gap. It’s not “what are my strengths?” It’s “What’s required of me to do what I want to do, and how can I grow into that?”
- Every day by noon, do something that matters. When you’ve got to make the bills, nothing’s easier than working for everyone else. But the truth is, that work will get done regardless, because the bills have to be paid. It’s important to carve out time for the work God has called us to do—first.
- Don’t be afraid to take on responsibility. That doesn’t mean you need to be the organizer of everything you do. But it does mean you need to be a linchpin who holds your group together. And get in a mastermind, because we can’t do this alone.
- The power plant doesn’t have energy, it generates it. Don’t wait for inspiration or energy. Bring the joy.
- You must see yourself as an Olympic athlete. An an author, the books you write are your craft. The marketing you create helps your voice be heard. You must do whatever it takes to be the best at what you do—and others will see that through your performance.
- Health plays a HUGE role in achieving your dreams. When your health goes, nothing else matters. Burchard says:
“No more excuses! Statistically, through the largest study ever created, high performance is NOT strongly correlated with age, gender, nationality, intelligence, personality, strengths, creativity, empathy, years of experience or compensation.”
- Many problems can be solved by a four letter word: HIRE.
- You have to take charge of your ship. You can’t control the waves. You can’t always control which way you’re pitched. But you can control what happens at the wheel and how you course-correct.
- You must build for scale. That means doing more than one thing at a time as you accomplish your “one thing.” If your one thing is to build a cathedral, write down actions to work on the courtyard, the foundation, the exterior, the levels and the interior all at once. God won’t call you to do something He hasn’t given you the resources to do.
- BONUS: You have the bandwidth. If you want 30% more productivity, get rid of 30% of the things that don’t matter. Own your calendar.
Next we’re taking these takeaways and soldiering them up. They’re going to work for us with clear action points we’re putting on the calendar and into practice. Our hope is that some of these resonate with you, too, and will help your journey as they have ours.
Let’s change the world together!
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