High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way

I have no idea how this book has attained such a high rating; I would perhaps have given it 2 stars if the rating was more accurate, but I now feel the need to warn my fellow readers!I strongly recommend you save your money, or, purchase the classic "7 Habits Of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey, which makes this paltry excuse for writing and self-help look like garbage.The author's shameless attempts to upsell the reader with other offerings is comparable only to a stereotypical used cars salesman...the sleaze never stops oozing.

After the third chapter you get sick of the guy advertising his product and web sites

I really liked the habits and formulas presented in this book and agreed with most. Early in the book the author asks you to take his “High Performance Indicator” test. (Which I was happy to do) problem is I felt immediately pitched from the author for other products/services which took out the genuineness that the author conveyed up until that point. I immediately began receiving emails from the author trying to sell me other products. This made me feel like, ‘geese I purchased the book from this guy, I’m not even 1/4 through and he’s trying to sell me something else’. I had to ask to be removed from the email list. This made me pause and think about the feeling of the hook in my lip and how to remove it, something I needed to get over before continuing in my reading. I have now finished the book and do feel the author was sincere and appreciated the insight. I would have been much more receptive of more information from him if it came at a later time.....

I was excited first, but end up realizing the author just wants us to buy his products.

This book has a LOT of fluff. At the 10% mark the concepts are just now being introduced. Most of it has been repetitive, and I have already noticed some of the exact phrases from 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The author spends several paragraphs talking about how he had to cut valuable information from the book because originally it was 1500 pages. Don't worry though, you can get this great content on his blog or website.I took the free assessment (normally a $97 value!!) and on average got about 3-4 out of 5. Bad news, I need to be at around 4.6 to be effective. The good news is after each category there is a link that tells me how to improve my score! Surely the link will direct me back to this book that has all the answers, right? No, there is an online course, this book isn't mentioned. But more good news! Today you can get the course half off, for only $297!!!Despite all of this I remain slightly optimistic. The book promises to show exact steps to take to improve performance and get more out of life. If it delivers I will gladly delete or amend this review.On the not so optimistic side, a lot of this seems to be rehashed from other material. Seeking clarity is sounding suspiciously like Begin With the End in Mind. Also, I took the assessment about 2 hours ago and have already gotten 3 emails from the author trying to sell the course mentioned above. And again, it bothers me that the assessment results prompt me to the seminar, not to the book that promises to have all the answers.

I was not prepared to like this book. I’ve never met the author or heard him speak, but I admit to having a bias against the premise that is at the heart of all consulting—that everything can be taught. It’s not a false assumption; it’s just not a complete one. Context is everything, which is why history often has less to teach us than we may think.Too many books of this genre are written by people who have been drinking the Kool-Aid and come to believe they have discovered the true essence of water. Burchard, thankfully, is not that author. You may not agree with everything he writes, but you will ultimately conclude that he is authentic, and that’s about the highest compliment I can pay a person.Every good consultant will start their session with their objective. Brendon is no exception. “This book is about how people become extraordinary, and why others block themselves from that possibility. It will show clearly and unmistakably why some excel, others fail, and far too many never even try.” A few pages later he adds, “It will reveal what it takes to become not just an achiever but a high performer—someone who creates ever-increasing levels of both well-being and external success over the long term.”Then comes the hook. Every consultant knows the old saying, “Them that can, do; those that can’t, teach.” That’s why they always give you the pièce de résistance, the handful of words that describes why their idea is different. It can normally be shown as a geometric shape or simple graph. In this case, it is, “High performance is not achieved by a specific kind of person, but rather a specific set of practices, which I call high performance habits.”At this point, I admit, my expectations were being met. And then things went from bad to worse. “Taken together, the six habits you’ll learn here won’t just get you to excellence, they’ll make you happier—and the data proves it. The positive emotions of engagement, joy, and confidence that define the high performer’s emotional state can be yours.”Happier? I am a sexagenarian who has known modest success and far less modest failure. If there is one thing I’ve learned it is that happiness will not give your life meaning or you contentment. Having the world by the tail is not the path to a purposeful life.But I persevered through the book. I am a curious person and do not give up easily. And the author has achieved more success in high performance coaching than most of us will ever achieve in much of anything. He has a Rolodex (an outdated term, for sure) of the most powerful and influential people on the planet, from Oprah to past presidents and Olympians.I read the book pretty much straight through although I have long practiced one of the tidbits of advice the author offers. I refuse to multi-task and believe it is the scourge of inefficiency and incomprehension. But I do believe in taking breaks, in changing the scene, and augmenting the primary objective (in this case, reading) with the indulgence of a good coffee or a piece of chocolate.I won’t share the six habits of high performance (HP6) that are the heart of the book. And the reason is that we don’t learn if we don’t learn in context. And that task is up to the author, not me, a reader.I will tell you that one thing all six habits have in common is that they are deliberate. They require conscious effort. There are no little green pills. The book, in fact, might have been called The Power of Being Deliberate.Burchard is also not a therapist. “I’ll remind you, I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist, neuroscientist, biologist, or any other title I’m aware of that ends in ‘-ist.’ I am a professional high performance coach and trainer who is paid for results, not discussion or theory.” Fair enough. That’s probably what most people who will consider this book are looking for. Otherwise you’d be in the religion or philosophy sections.There is some jargon but it’s admittedly modest for a book of the genre. There is talk of prolific quality output (PQO, of course), and “performance necessity,” and you will have to get your head around, “They [high performers] remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” It’s a central theme.The HP6, as I was reading the book, did remind me of a variant of cognitive behavioral therapy but that’s not a criticism. It’s a function of the very deliberate nature of the process and practices described. In the end, high performance, as Brendon describes it, is a verb, not an achievement. “Connection [for example] is less about comfort than about challenge.” (I personally think it’s about trust.) And, “…it’s so thoroughly obvious that high performers are generating the feelings they want more often that taking the emotions that land on them.”My biggest pause came with the quote: “The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe to it.” It’s a quote from Joseph Campbell, an American writer known for his work in comparative mythology. He’s probably most often remembered for the counsel, “Follow your bliss.” It’s a quote that is often misinterpreted but is a little too nihilistic for my taste.And when he writes, “There are only two narratives in the human story: struggle and progress,” my first thought was that Camus would disagree. But that’s too much of a digression to get into here.The money line for me was, “Superiority draws us off track a quarter inch at a time.” This is a man who believes in his mission. It is a quality that resonates throughout the book and is, perhaps, the book’s greatest contribution. Too many “successful” people, in my experience, talk humility, but walk superiority. Humility is not an attitude. It is a way of living.It was here that the author earned my 4 rating. The book is probably longer than it needs to be but, in the end, I found it worth the journey. It’s an ambitious work by a man that obviously believes in what he does. And that is undoubtedly why he has known such success.

A chunk of the book was spent talking about problems and then a small minority focused on actionable tips. A lot of the book was also spent with the author talking about himself: how many followers he has, how successful he is, which felt ironic given his pages on humility. Habits 1-4 were useful but 5-6 were not very useful.I’d advise the next reader to skim the summary to see if it’s helpful, then map out the specific areas they want to make progress on and skim through. The stories presented weren’t really helpful in getting the points across.

The first hour he has spent taking about what he's going to talk about and how successful he became as a life coach. Too much fluff in my opinion. I am still waiting for him to get to the point. I may not finish the audio book at all.

Arrived just in time for me to read Chapter 1 before a job interview....got the job but refused it as I realised it wasn't taking me in the right direction, this was several months ago and looking back this was a very good decision !! I have not read the whole book yet but the chapters I have read have helped me make more informed decisions in relation to my interests and improve my health. I have bought this for colleagues and my husband is now reading it for a second time. Well worth getting.

Dieses Buch ist kein normales Produktivitäts-Buch. Sonder hier geht es um High Performance. Der Autor definiert High Performance als: "succeeding beyond standard norms, consistently over the long term".Die Botschaft dieses Buches ist: Als High Performer wird man nicht geboren. High Performance ist erlernbar. Und zwar mit den sechs Gewohnheiten, die der Autor aus zahlreichen wissenschaftlichen Studien und seiner eigenen Praxis herausdestilliert hat:1) Klarheit suchen2) Energie generieren3) die Notwendigkeit erhöhen4) die Produktivität verbessern5) Einfluss entwickeln6) Mut demonstrieren.Diese sechs Gewohnheiten mögen erst einmal lapidar erscheinen. Was das Buch besonders macht: Es gibt konkrete Tools an die Hand, wie man diese Gewohnheiten entwickeln kann.Der Autor verschweigt nicht, dass damit Arbeit verbunden ist und die immer wieder bewusste Entscheidung, diese Gewohnheiten zu praktizieren und auf einen höheren Level zu bringen.Ich bin mit dem Buch noch nicht ganz zu Ende. Doch bereits eine der Gewohnheiten, die ich seitdem anwende (Transition Meditation auf S. 100) hat solche positiven Effekte auf meinen gesamten Tagesablauf, wie ich sie mir nicht hätte vorstellen können.In den letzten Jahren habe ich schon einiges von Brendon Burchard kennen gelernt und seine eigene kontinuierliche Top Performance verfolgt.. Dieses Buch halte ich für sein bestes Buch und empfehle es daher für alle, die zu High Performance gelangen bzw. diese verbessern wollen.Ich halte es besonders geeignet für ambitionierte Solopreneure, die an ihrer eigenen Entwicklung interessiert sind und daran, ihr Business auf einen neuen Level zu bringen und verkaufsfähig zu machen. Denn das ist ein langer Weg und kontinuierliche High Performance ist dabei sehr förderlich.

So far so good – it's amazing the small things that you DON'T DO which make ALL the difference to your life – good book to read if you're trying to regulate why you're not where you could be.

If you are serious about high performance then look no further. The journey of personal development never stops but sometimes we can all be guilty of consuming knowledge and not acting on it. Knowledge isn't power, applied knowledge is power!If applying these principles is the way to the next level then I'm ALL IN.See you guys at the top 🏔😎

I would recommend this book to all who feel they want a change or know they are close to burnout. If you want happiness, confidence, energy and a thrilling life then choose this book and use its practical prompts. It's a map and takes you through the doable steps.