What do the rich successful, and happy do that average people don't?

You might already have an answer in mind. My students have given me many answers to that question over the years. Some people feel there is a hidden formula that only high achievers understand. Most people feel like you need to be driven to work hundred-hour weeks. Others feel like you are either born with it or you aren’t.

But there isn’t any magic to being a high performer, you don’t have to work your fingers to the bone, and you don’t have to be born with something special. Anyone can be a high performer.

The reason that most people are not high performers is not only simple to understand; it’s the key to becoming a high performer. I believe you’ll love the answer because every single one of you can do something about it as soon as you realize it.

Take dieting. Why do people have so much trouble losing weight? There are only two possible actions that result in dropping pounds: 1) eating less, and 2) exercising more. Why can’t people shed their excess weight quickly and simply?

The answer to that question is the same as the answer to my first question: Why aren’t we all successful, high performers?

Before you can be successful as a high performer or a dieter, you have to get a handle on your emotions. High performance is emotional. Dieting is emotional. There is an emotional component that people don’t recognize, don’t understand, and have no idea what to do with.

Inside our brains, our emotional and logical wiring are so interconnected, it’s impossible to separate them. Your decision-making system is like an iceberg; a little bit is visible from the surface, but the bulk is underwater or subconscious. A big factor in why we underperform has to do with the emotion of fear – fear that we might not even realize we have.

The key to high performance is in understanding how our brains are wired as human beings. Our brains control everything we do, think, and feel. You may feel your heart flutter, but it’s your brain that sent the signal to your heart to beat fast. You may be aware of a gut feeling you have, but your brain initiated that feeling before it reached your gut. You may be able to wiggle your toes, but your brain first sent the command to start wiggling to your toes from its motor cortex. Your brain is your master command center for everything.

Throughout history, our brains have been wired by default for survival ; success as we tend to measure it in our contemporary society is simply not in our natural wiring. Our wiring dates back thousands of years and was brilliantly designed to keep us alive at all costs in our cave man days.

Once you understand why this cave man wiring causes you to act the way you do in today’s modern world, you can decide if you want to “override” your default wiring so you can live more powerfully as a high performer. The good news is that it takes only a little bit of understanding and knowledge – and actually a lot of fun – to adjust the natural wiring so that we can become the successes – the high performers – we want to be.

In future issues, we’ll go more in depth on how to rewire your brain to win instead of just survive. For now, start becoming more aware of how you make decisions and when fear (or just hesitation) comes up for you. With this increased awareness, you’ve mastered the first step of rewiring your brain to win.