374 - How To Tell If You're A High Performer?

0:00If you listen to my Thanksgiving message on failure and responsibility, I want to take this one step further. Taking responsibility is where high performance begins, but is not where it ends. Plenty of people say, it's my fault. Actually, a whole lot of people don't say that, but yes, plenty of people do say, it's my fault. But very few actually use that ownership correctly. High performance do something very specific immediately after failure. They conduct a clean review. Not an emotional one, not a self-punishing one, but a clinical one. Most people either blame others or they beat themselves up.

0:43But reactions lead to the same outcome, both of those do. No improvement. High performers separate emotion from analysis. They ask three questions. First, what was within my control? Not what went wrong. Not who did what. just what I controlled? Second, what decision or lack of decision created this outcome? A lot of times I've said that we are where we are in life because of the actions we took or didn't take almost exclusively. High performers understand that inaction is also a choice. And then third, what single adjustment would change the outcome the next time? Not 10 things, just one. This is how learning stays fast and usable.

1:36Failure often feels big, but the lesson is usually small. A tighter question asked earlier, a follow-up made one week sooner, a preparation, steps skipped, maybe not following the steps, a boundary not enforced. You've got to set up boundaries if you want to control your own time, or people will find their way in. High-performance hunt for that lever. Here is where most people make their second mistake. They wait. They reflect. They think. They talk about it. High-performance move. They implement the adjustment immediately. While a lesson is still fresh. While a pain is still remembered. The speed is not accidental.

2:20It's trained. This is why high-performance pull away from the pack over the time. They do not have fewer failures. That is absolutely true. They have shorter recovery cycles. That's a real advantage. But let me give you something practical. After any setback, especially a meaningful one, write this down. One sentence only. Next time, what would I do? You know, when I managed a lot of people, and it took me a long time to learn this lesson, high-performance people knew they screwed up. So I didn't need to tell them, oh, you screwed up. What I needed to do is say to them, okay, that wasn't good.

3:03What are we going to do next time? And that paid benefits. I used to work for years with a Navy SEAL, and we would occasionally make joint calls together. But when we came out of those calls, even if they were great calls, one of the first things he said or I said, we were both on the same page and doing it. That was a good call, but what could we have done better? And most of the time we came up with things that we could have done better. So yes, we did, as we were walking to our cars, a post-mortem. If you cannot finish that sentence, and again, next time, what will I do differently? You have not learned the lesson yet.

3:46And if you do not act on it within 48 hours, you will repeat the same mistake almost certainly. High performers respect momentum. They understand that clarity fades quickly. One more critical point. One of the things that taught me that was when we made these sales calls, we would come out of the call and we would dictate what we call the report a call in a dictaphone that went to a secretary. Not too many dictaphones, not too many secretaries around anymore. But I would occasionally say, okay, I took notes in the call. So let me not look at those notes and do a report a call and then look at the notes and see how many of them I missed.

4:30And amazingly, just within an hour or two of that call, I would miss several points. So one more critical point. High performance do not, performers do not tell everyone about their failures. They share them selectively. Not for sympathy, not for accountability. One trusted advisor, perhaps your chairperson, your mentor, but someone who will ask, did you implement the change you identified? That external pressure matters. Responsibility without action is just absolutely vocabulary. And responsibility plus action is what creates results. So here is the full progression. Failure happens. Understand that.

5:16You will fail your way to success. Responsibility is taken. The lesson is extracted. The adjustment is made. And then action follows immediately. Then the cycle repeats. This is how adversity becomes an advantage. Not because it feels good, but because it makes you better. If you're serious about performing at a higher level, stop asking how to avoid failure. Ask instead how fast you can learn from it, and that question changes everything. This past week, I had a mentee who was doing a whole lot of things wrong, not getting the results he wanted, and then we had a call. He implemented the changes we talked about.

6:05He followed up with a law firm that had previously not worked out, and then he sent me an email that said, just wanted to let you know that what we discussed worked, and I've got an engagement letter I can sign from that law firm. But he didn't wait. He didn't think about it for weeks or months or whatever. He took action. So I would encourage you to go back and look at yesterday's video. You're already listening to this podcast and put those lessons into effect. 2026 is almost here and certainly there are changes that I think you could make to implement what you think could have done better in 2025, but you don't have to wait to 2026 to implement those changes.

6:55So if you don't know the steps, go over to brucewhipple.com and you'll see the Acquisition Advantage Bootcamp. And the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday. And if you're not getting my emails, that's too bad because there's a Black Friday special that starts right now. So take action, know what you want to achieve, follow the steps. Those are the secrets of success in 2026 and the remainder of 2025, we've still got a month left, can be a change in your life and your lifestyle that oftentimes you don't imagine. If you've written your why, your affirmations, and they make sense to you, maybe you have imagined it though.