The Secret to a High-Performance Mindset

“Becoming is better than being.” ~ Carol S. Dweck

It’s one of the most overused terms in leadership… high performance.

Everyone claims to want it. Everyone says they’re striving for it. But here’s the thing – most people have no idea what it actually means.

Leaders often assume high performance is about hitting the numbers, standing out from the crowd, and maintaining order. It causes us to bring in famous “achievers” to speak at our conferences and kickoffs (especially from the world of sports). And at first glance, that makes sense. The pursuit of achievement feels rewarding. It seems productive.

Until it doesn’t.

Because what most leaders fail to realize is that this mindset – what I’ll call the achievement trap - isn’t sustainable. At the very least, it sets up the entire team to become addicted to the sin of resulting. We pursue one mountain top after another in an endless cycle of “more” – and ignore what we are becoming in the process.

You see, tragically, the achievement trap is essentially a downward spiral. It leads to burnout, dysfunction, and underperformance over time. Look at every famous story of a “has been” athlete, celebrity, business, or even government. The seeds of greatness were eventually ruined.

The Achievement Trap: When “High Performance” Goes Wrong

The Achievement Trap distorts our natural drives into unhealthy pursuits:

The endless pursuit of success leads to burnout and emptiness.

The endless pursuit of significance creates isolation and dysfunction.

The endless pursuit of control results in abuse and division.

Why does this happen? Because when we fixate on these outcomes, we tie our self-worth to the fear-based part of our brain. And nothing good comes from living that way.

Take the pursuit of success, for example. It feels great when you’re winning, but what happens when you don’t? Leaders in the achievement trap fear failure so intensely that they overwork themselves and their teams, leaving everyone drained and disengaged.

Or consider the pursuit of significance. It feeds the ego, but it also creates a fear of rejection. Leaders obsessed with being valued often struggle to collaborate or delegate, isolating themselves and undermining team dynamics.

Finally, control. Leaders who crave control live in constant fear of risk. They micromanage, resist innovation, and stifle creativity – all in an attempt to eliminate uncertainty.

The Achievement Trap feels like progress in the short term. But over time, it leads to division, dysfunction, and what I call the Ego/Fear Loop – a cycle that keeps leaders stuck in reactive, destructive patterns.

The Ego/Fear Loop: Why the Achievement Trap Persists

The Ego/Fear Loop is the root cause of the Achievement Trap. For those unfamiliar, here’s how it works:

We are all born with a sense of self – what is technically referred to as the ego (note” I use ego in psychological terms here, not as a pejorative term for someone’s arrogance).

We then learn how to “feed” our egos based on what feels good. For most of us, we learned to feed our egos with:

• Success: the accomplishment of a favorable or desired outcome
• Significance: the recognition as being important or having notable worth
• Control: the power to influence people and circumstances

This all sounds normal right? Well, normal isn’t necessarily good for us.

• When success feeds the ego, the ego automatically creates the fear of failure to protect itself and make sure that success happens again.
• When significance feeds the ego, the ego automatically creates the fear of rejection to protect itself and make sure that significance happens again.
• When we control feeds the ego, the ego automatically creates the fear of risk to protect itself and make sure that control happens again.

These fears now create a loop that keeps us focused on protecting our egos instead of being the best version of ourselves. More importantly – it distorts what high performance actually means.

Instead of something healthy and beautiful, the Ego/Fear Loop generates corrupted DNA. And this corrupted DNA causes the culture of our teams to become toxic. Instead of thriving to become our full potential, we spend all of energy on standing out and being better than everyone else. Or we often retreat to the “safety” of mediocrity to fit in and/or wait for our own chance of being “in charge.” And then we look for other “high performers” to promote into leadership so that our egos can consume success, significance, and/or control in a “scalable” way.

And thus the loop continues on its own long after we exit the organization.

Breaking free from the Ego/Fear Loop isn’t easy. But it’s possible.

Consider the example of Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. When Satya took over the reins of Microsoft, it was losing its edge, bogged down by internal competition and a fixation on maintaining dominance.

Knowing that he had to change the mindset of the entire culture, Nadella didn’t just focus on hitting short-term targets. He redefined what success meant for Microsoft.

By emphasizing a growth mindset and empathy, he encouraged employees to collaborate, experiment, and learn – even from failure. This was hardly “the stand out and deliver results” culture he had inherited.

?In his own words, “I wanted us to be a learn-it-all culture, not a know-it-all culture.”

This shift didn’t just rejuvenate Microsoft’s culture; it also delivered phenomenal business results. Nadella reflected, “Empathy makes you a better innovator. If I look at the most successful products we have created, they all have one thing in common: their ability to meet the unmet, unarticulated needs of customers.”

Under his guidance, Microsoft reinvigorated its position as one of the top companies in the world, proving that sustainable high performance starts with a different mindset.

So there is an alternative to the achievement trap. And it’s grounded in something far deeper and more sustainable than anything singular achievements can deliver.

I call it an authentic high-performance mindset. And it’s probably not what you think. Let’s unpack what I am talking about.

The High-Performance Mindset: A Better Way to Lead

An authentic high-performance mindset is about aligning with your core drives in a healthier way. It replaces success, significance, and control with:

• Confidence: Doing your best and learning from the process.
• Acceptance: Loving yourself unconditionally and valuing relationships for connection – not validation.
• Trust: Letting go of control and embracing the journey.

Here’s how each of these elements transforms leadership:

1. Confidence: Doing My Best

Confidence comes from answering the question, “Am I doing my best?” It’s about using experience and feedback as teachers to continually improve – not as measures of your worth.

Leaders with confidence don’t fear failure. They see it as an opportunity to grow and refine their craft.

When you focus on doing your best, outcomes become secondary. And ironically, that’s when outcomes improve.

2. Acceptance: Loving Unconditionally

Acceptance is about embracing yourself – flaws, strengths, and all. It answers the question, “Do I truly love myself as I am?”

This mindset transforms relationships. Instead of seeking validation or positioning yourself for advantage, you connect authentically with others.

Leaders with acceptance build trust and collaboration within their teams, creating environments where everyone can thrive.

3. Trust: Embracing the Journey

Trust comes from realizing that control is an illusion. It asks, “Can I make peace with this journey and trust that it’s ultimately good?”

By letting go of the need to micromanage, leaders free themselves and their teams to innovate, adapt, and grow.

Trust doesn’t mean inaction. It means focusing on what you can influence while accepting what you can’t.

How to Shift Your Mindset

If you’re ready to break free from the Ego/Fear Loop and embrace an authentic high-performance mindset, here are four steps to start:

Step 1: Reflect on Your Triggers

Ask yourself:

• Am I somehow being affected by the fear(s) of failure, rejection, and/or risk?
• How are these fears impacting my team and my ability to lead as the best version of myself?

Self-awareness is the first step to breaking the loop.

Step 2: Get Neutral

Neutral thinking helps you step back from emotional reactions. Ask yourself:

• Am I doing my best?
• Do I accept myself just as I am?
• Do I trust the journey I am on?
• Am I truly in a neutral state?

Neutrality shifts your focus from ego-driven biases to seeing objective insights.

Step 3: Redefine the Outcome

Replace the relentless pursuit of external validation with clarity around meaningful goals. Ask yourself:

• What is the most positive outcome that can be achieved right now?
• What is the most realistic outcome we can achieve given our current resources and constraints?
• How can this outcome serve as a stepping stone for long-term progress?

Shifting to the pursuit of the positive, yet realistic, possible outcome gives you and your team the best path forward.

Step 4: Lean into the Team

High performance is a collective effort. Ask yourself:

• Who on your team is neutral/not neutral? What can you do about that?
• How can I inject a growth mindset into our efforts with those that are aligned?
• What actions do we need to pursue now to produce the most positive outcome?

By engaging your team in these reflections, you create a culture of trust, collaboration, and sustainable growth.

The Bottom Line

High performance isn’t about chasing success, significance, and control. It’s about aligning with confidence, acceptance, and trust.

This mindset doesn’t just produce better results – it creates a more fulfilling leadership journey.

So, here’s my challenge to you: take one decision you’re facing today. Reflect on it. Get neutral. Redefine the outcome. Lean into your team.

What do you see now that you didn’t see before?

THAT'S the power of a true high-performance mindset.

Holomua. Onward and upward.?

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An extra thought:

“True greatness is not in being superior to others, but in being superior to your former self.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

In case you missed it...

If you have ever felt the pressure that “EVERYTHING is a priority,” this YouTube vlog is for you: https://youtu.be/AiQH7tDaRh8

A mirror moment from this past week: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/timohai_leadership-selfawareness-selfawareness-activity-7286138385394475008-sS12?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Do you know how I may be able to help you and your team? https://timohai.com/kupu-solutions/

Here's what I have been consuming...

Hall of Fame QB Steve Young on mindset: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE0lj-whpvP/?igsh=MW50eWt2N3F2MmwydQ==

The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith is full of insight on how to be the kind of leader we are talking about: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593237277?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_1N6PQFG3HAWBXVK88TD2_1&skipTwisterOG=1&bestFormat=true&newOGT=1

How to lead across a siloed organization: https://hbr.org/2024/01/how-to-lead-across-a-siloed-organization

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