John Eliot, Ph.D.

Superstars perform so naturally and so instinctively that they seem to be able to enter a pressure-packed situation that would terrify or freeze most people as if nothing matters. They let it happen, let it go. They couldn't care less about the results.

Like squirrels, the best in every business do what they have learned to do without questioning their abilities - they flat out trust their skills, which is why we call this high-performance state of mind the "Trusting Mindset."

The best players in any high-stakes field - business, entertainment, law, surgery, as well as sport - recognize that pressure occurs at the moments when meaningful accomplishment is possible. In fact, that is the reason why performers perform: for the opportunity to tackle challenges head on, to do something significant, to demonstrate what their hard work and talent can produce.

What turns ordinary people into overachievers is the way they use their minds when they are called on to perform.

Overachievers don't think reasonably, sensibly, or rationally.

Stress is the high-level performers PowerBar.

Arrogant S.O.B.s run the world. A performer can never have too much self-confidence. The best in every field are likely to strike most people as irrationally confident, but that's how they got to the top.

Unlikely accomplishments are borne out of single-minded purposefulness. Future superstars don't get there by keeping part of their heart in reserve.

High achievers dwell on what they do well and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performances.

Great performers in all fields seem immune to what outsiders think about them. Their sense of themselves never depends on the feedback—positive or negative—they get from the environment.

No one else’s roadmap to success will get you there.

Thinking is a habit, and like any other habit, it can be changed; it just takes effort and repetition.

The top players in every field think differently when all the marbles are on the line. Great performers focus on what they are doing, and nothing else…They let it happen, let it go. They couldn’t care less about the results.

Great performers welcome pressure.

I have discovered that I cannot enhance anybody’s performance without getting them not only to live with the butterflies that come with high-pressure jobs but to embrace that kind of physical response, enjoy it, get into it. That’s the first real ticket to being a performer who thinks exceptionally.

Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American… and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year—1956…But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.

Great performers are, by definition, abnormal; they strive throughout their entire careers to separate themselves from the pack.

We tend to view confidence as a product of accomplishment rather than part of the process that leads there. But supremely confident people were confident long before they achieved anything.

Confidence is not a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.

Stick with your own perception of yourself—living in your own world—and letting your reality, not the reality presented by other people or particular situations, control your performance.

Anyone who strays too far from the majority view or the conventional wisdom is bound to be labeled “arrogant,” “a maverick,” “a Wildman,” “weird,” or even “crazy.”

If you really want to break from the pack, you have to risk being perceived to be as eccentric as these people. You have to think exceptionally—a LOT!

To be a top performer you have to be passionately committed to what you’re doing and insanely confident about your ability to pull it off.

All the great performers I have worked with are fueled by a personal dream.

Future superstars don't get there by keeping part of their heart in reserve.

Overachievement is aimed at people who want to maximize their potential. And to do that, I insist you throw caution to the wind, ignore the pleas of parents, coaches, spouses, and bosses to be "realistic." Realistic people do not accomplish extraordinary things because the odds against success stymie them. The best performers ignore the odds. I will show you that instead of limiting themselves to what's probable, the best will pursue the heart-pounding, exciting, really big, difference-making dreams--so long as catching them might be possible.

If you really want to find out what you're capable of, you cannot put limits on yourself, and you definitely cannot be cautious.

History, though, shows us that the people who end up changing the world—the great political, scientific, social, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries—are always nuts, until they’re right, and then they’re geniuses.

Superstars think like superstars long before the fans or the press anoint them.

Confidence is a resolute state of mind by which you believe nothing is impossible.

Elevated levels of confidence are omnipresent among history’s greatest overachievers. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most famous men in the world even before he signed the Declaration of Independence once lamented about humility, “I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue.”

Genuine confidence is a way of thinking about yourself and your abilities. Confidence is your perception of your own potential; it’s a kind of long-term thinking that powers you through the obstacles and tough times, helping you solve problems and putting you in the way of success. Your confidence is quite a separate matter from your social skills.

Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are.

The physical symptoms of fight or flight are what the human body has learned over thousands of years to operate efficiently and at the highest level…anxiety is a cognitive interpretation of that physical response.

Great performers are, by definition, abnormal.

Thinking is a habit, and like any other habit, it can be changed; it just takes effort and repetition.

I will show you how you, too, can consistently achieve the kind of intense focus that marks all the best performers in the world. I will show you how to reshape your thinking so you will be able to trust your skills and experiences and let ‘em rip—to perform so freely and intensely that you will become not just good at what you do, but something of an artist at it.

Butterflies, cotton mouth, and a pounding heart make the finest performers smile—the smile of a person with an ace up their sleeves… They definitely would agree with Tiger Woods, who has often said, ‘The day I’m not nervous stepping onto the first tee—that’s the day I quit.’

I have discovered that I cannot enhance anybody’s performance without getting them not only to live with the butterflies that come with high-pressure jobs, but to embrace that kind of physical response, enjoy it, get into it. That’s the real first ticket to being a performer who thinks exceptionally.

Confidence is not a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.

I have found that the top players in every field think differently when all the marbles are on the line. Great performers focus on what they are doing, and nothing else… They are able to engage in a task so completely that there is no room left for self-criticism, judgment, or doubt; to stay loose and supremely, even irrationally, self-confident; to just step up and do what they’re good at, concentrating only on the simplest nature of their performance.

Anyone who strives too far from the majority or the conventional wisdom is bound to be labeled ‘arrogant,’ or ‘a maverick,’ ‘a wildman,’ ‘weird,’ or even ‘crazy.’

Exceptional thinkers ignore their critics and go about their business making history.