High Performer (noun): A person who consistently executes their craft at a top-1% level over an extended period of time.

I'm very fortunate to be able to spend time with many such people during the normal course of my "work"—from CEOs to athletes to investors to artists. This means I have a front row seat for direct observation of what makes these people tick.

It's fair to say that I spend a lot of time thinking about high performers.

I don't do it because I'm envious or obsessed—rather, it's because I'm interested in deconstructing their high performance, in breaking down the very-intimidating whole into its less-intimidating component parts.

And I'm not alone.

At this point, I'm sure you've all read countless articles and books about what makes the greats so...well...great.

But for the most part, I've found these pieces tend to focus on the obvious:

• Exceptional Motivation & Drive
• Love of the Process
• Innate Talent
• Etc.

As always, my goal is to dig a bit deeper—to uncover the non-obvious or to reframe the obvious in such a way that it suddenly clicks in your mind.

With that context, here are the non-obvious traits of high performers that I have observed.

Modulate Intensity

Good performers have learned to turn on max intensity and go all out. Great performers have learned to modulate the intensity to the situation.

They identify leveraged opportunities and execute in bursts.

The amateur only knows one speed—the professional knows them all.

When a situation calls for low intensity, they execute at low intensity. When a situation calls for high intensity, they execute at high intensity.

A great example of this: Lionel Messi.

He is often seen walking around on the pitch—almost appearing lazy—a fact that many commentators have noted.

But the reality is that this approach is essential to his incredible success.

He is the best in the world at identifying the leveraged moments where his inputs will be amplified. During these moments, he goes 100%. Outside of these moments, not so much.

When you enter any new arena, first learn to identify the points of leverage in the system. Once you identify them, focus all of your intensity on those points. If you aren't in one of them, rest.

Work like a lion: Sprint, eat, rest, repeat.

Note: My friend Khe Hy has a great piece on Messi's strategy and how it can apply to your work and life here.

Embrace the 95-5 Rule

I have a concept I call my 95-5 Rule:

In any arena, there are simple building blocks that account for 95% of performance.

The vast majority of what we read about (or are marketed and sold) are the 5% solutions, when all most of us really need is to nail the 95% building blocks.

A few examples:

• Money: 95% would include savings rate, simple index fund investing, and managing bills. 5% would include stock picking, worrying about rate movements, and alternative assets.
• Fitness: 95% would include eating whole foods, exercising daily, and sleeping 7-8 hours per night. 5% would include fancy supplements, cold plunges, and expensive equipment.

High performers intrinsically understand the importance of the 95-5 Rule. They consistently nail the 95% before moving onto the 5%.

Nail the basic building blocks that get you 95% of the benefit. Then you can move to the longer tail that gets you the last 5%.

Focus on Questions (Not Answers)

Top performers consistently ask great questions. It allows them to aggregate insights more effectively. Their "insight yield" is incredibly high.

I have a framework around this that I call the Question-Action Matrix:

Asking great questions uncovers the truth—bias for action builds upon it.

You can effectively place people in one of the four quadrants:

• Q1: World-changers (rare!)
• Q2: Grinders/hustlers
• Q3: Philosophers/thinkers
• Q4: Dead zone

Invest heavily behind the Q1s, hire more of the Q2s, spend time with the Q3s, and avoid Q4s.

Remember: Smart people want to have the best answers—geniuses want to ask the best questions.

Healthy Paranoia

Highly-successful people share a surprising fear that all of the success is suddenly going to disappear.

A prime example:

Sequoia’s Mike Moritz once told Charlie Rose that paranoia was what had allowed Sequoia to become the most successful VC firm in history.

"Failure comes from the failure to imagine failure." - Josh Wolfe

The best have developed a seemingly uncanny ability to imagine failure.

It creates two dynamics:

• Positive—drive for continued growth
• Negative—enough is never enough

I suspect this double-edged sword of paranoia is the reason that many of the world's high performers cannot be characterized as "happy" in a traditional sense of the word.

Finding balance between the two is the difficult part.

Understand Luck vs. Skill

Humans are storytelling creatures. But our stories are often flawed.

We are notoriously bad at differentiating between luck and skill:

• Stories of success tend to downplay the role of luck
• Stories of failure tend to overplay the role of luck

Average performers think like this:

• Good outcome? I'm a genius!
• Bad outcome? I'm unlucky!

Top performers have developed an understanding of the separation between inputs and outcomes.

They control their inputs and have an awareness of when they won on the basis of skill (vs. when they simply got lucky).

Hyper Self-Awareness

The most successful people are hyper self-aware.

They have identified their unique edge relative to the world.

Then they play iterative games that favor that edge—they exploit it, over and over again.

They don't focus on their weaknesses—they press their strengths.

Reduce the Amplitude

Imagine your emotional state as a wave—with ups and downs above and below a baseline.

The amplitude of the wave is the measure of the peak swings vs. the baseline.

Winners find a way to reduce the amplitude.

When you get too high, you're prone to getting knocked down. When you get too low, you find it impossible to get back up.

Even keel wins: Never too high, never too low.

Expected Value Thinkers

In 2009, Elon Musk had a lunch with Charlie Munger.

Munger is rumored to have performed a monologue telling the table all of the reasons Tesla would fail.

Musk listened, accepted the reasons as correct, but said that it was still worth trying given the impact if it worked.

Two critical lessons to draw here:

1. Rather than reacting negatively to counterpoints, Musk embraced them. Amateurs get angered, professionals seek to understand.
2. Musk took action despite a low gross probability of success because he believed the bet had a positive expected value.

Thinking in expected value terms is a key differentiator.

Just because something is unlikely to work, it doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. If the payout is large enough, it may be a bet worth making.

Adaptive to Chaos & Change

In Greek mythology, the Hydra is a creature that has multiple heads. When one is cut off, two grow back in its place.

Life is chaotic. The best aren't broken by the chaos—they build structure such that they will benefit from it.

They are pro-entropic.

I had a baseball teammate who would grin wildly when we were in the depths of a painful workout. It was simultaneously inspiring and terrifying.

If you can smile through chaos:

• Everyone wants to stand with you
• No one wants to stand against you

Charles Darwin is often paraphrased as saying:

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change."

The only constant is chaos and change. If you can be responsive and adaptive to it, you'll win.

Expert Advice Filters

Advice is often a double-edged sword.

You're going to get a lot of advice on your journey—most of it will be well-intentioned. But it's dangerous to use someone else's map of reality to navigate yours.

Winners have learned how to filter and selectively implement advice.

They're able to take the signal and skip the noise.

Enjoy Being Wrong

The most successful people understand that finding the truth is much more important than being right.

They enjoy being wrong.

They embrace new info that forces them to change their viewpoint—these are software updates that improve upon the old.

Compartmentalization

Compartmentalization is a superpower.

The highest achievers have all developed an uncanny ability to compartmentalize. They turn off outside stressors and focus exclusively on the task at hand.

They have learned to manage "attention residue"—the carryover of attention from previous tasks that eats into performance in the current one.

If you learn to do this, the world is yours.

Note: I plan to write a future piece on Attention Residue and effective task-switching and compartmentalization techniques. If you're interested in reading, reply "Yes" to this email!

Conclusion

Those are 12 non-obvious traits I have observed in high performers.

I'd love to hear from you:

• What other non-obvious traits would you add to the list?
• Where have you observed these traits recently?

Tweet at me @SahilBloom and I'll do my best to get back to everyone!

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