10 QUALITIES OF HIGH PERFORMERS
In life, you get judged for a lot of different things. You get judged for your friends, who you date and who you marry. Well, in the business world, you’re going to get judged on who you think is a talent worth spending time with; who you recruit, who you lock onto. Over the years I’ve made so many mistakes working and locking onto the wrong person that ended up costing me thousands of hours and then having to start all over again. So eventually after thousands of people I’ve worked on, I came up with 10 things I look for before deciding to lock on to any talent.
Here are the 10 traits to know about when deciding if someone is worth developing:
1. There are responders and initiators
Everybody in the world is a responder. Meaning, if there’s a deadline, you respond and you get it done. If there’s a task, you respond, you get it done. You’ll say: f you don’t do this, you’re going to get fired. They in turn respond and get it done. Everybody’s a responder. I’m a responder. You’re a responder, the greatest leaders, Presidents, billionaires are all responders but only a few are initiators.
What is an initiator? Well, let’s just say one of our guys takes the initiative because I said something and they come back with 50 ideas regarding what I talked about; they have shown initiative. That wasn’t part of me necessarily wanting them to take the extra mile or go above and beyond but they did it anyway. It’s in their nature to initiate. I like people with that quality on the team. Responders don’t necessarily take initiative, but initiators absolutely perform take responding seriously. There’s a big difference between the two.
2. Energy
When it comes to energy, there are two different types of energy:
- One is your aura
- The other one is your stamina
Let’s talk about aura first. A lot of times as a CEO, I’ll say, wow, look at the people at the office this person goes to lunch with. Look at the people at the office they hang out with. Look at the people at the office that they associate themselves with the most. Look at the people that they typically hang out with the most. Why is it that some people hang out with people above them? Why is it that some people are friends with people way ahead of them? Or why is it that this person befriends people only below them that’s not on their team? Why is that? Well, maybe they have an identity issue. The right aura attracts the right people.
I also look at who they typically attract. For example, let’s say we have a party. If I see that the biggest performers are always around them, it means they are projecting the right aura. If they are attracting the wrong people at that party, it also says a lot about them.
When it comes to energy, I like people who can last and have stamina. When bad things happen or if we have a project and we have to go a little bit longer, they won’t say: Oh, you know what? Let’s not, I don’t know if I can stay up late or all these other reasons why they’re tired.
3. Language
I can listen to a person’s language and typically be able to pick the mindset they are in. The language you speak, we’ll say a lot about insecurities, fears, self-confidence, self-esteem. You can tell it. The language would also tell me if they’re supposed to as a leader or they’re a victim. I was recently doing a couple of interviews as a CEO for a few positions in the company and in one particular position I needed somebody for this position to be confident because he or she has to impose confidence to other people. After listening to the answers to my questions, I could tell whether they were answering from a leadership or victim mentality.
If the language sounds like: “I’m going to do this role better than anybody else, I believe I can play this part”. That language says a lot about the individual.
4. Parent (s) believe in them
I don’t need both parents to have believed in them. I actually prefer one didn’t because it could be a strength. The other day I was in San Antonio doing a speaking event and this guy comes up to me. He walks across the stage and he comes right past me. I saw him and his girl and I said, wow, this guy’s got swagger. I said hey how old are you? He says I’m 24, I said how old is your girl? 20. Then I asked how serious are you guys? He said pretty seriously. Then I followed it up by asking them about your parents. When I said the word parents, his body was like shocked. He said, I kind of knew you were going to ask that question, but that’s kind of, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of tough for me to… I said, I really want to know. Tell me about your parents and then he said, my mom, is my hero. She believes in me. She thinks I can do everything. I love my mom. I would take a bullet for my mom. My Dad had left and he’s not around and I don’t have the best relationship with my dad. You see for me when looking for. Potential leader, that’s perfect for me because if someone has that one person to prove wrong and one person who believes in them, I want that combination.
When having a conversation, you’ll hear me say: tell me about your parents, your relationship with mom and dad. Who are you closer to? Their answer will tell me a lot. Confidence is very critical. You give me somebody that’s very confident if we can take over the world together.
5. Attitude
Attitude to me is believing things are possible. For instance, if I say, guys, I want to go swim with great white sharks. I don’t want to hear all the reasons it won’t work. I want to hear somebody who says, let me search it and they find the best places to swim with great white sharks. It’s a believeing it’s possible kind of an attitude.
Their attitude is let me go figure out. They answer the question – how can do this? And they’ll figure out a way. They find a way they, they take initiative. Attitude is so attractive to me because I know if I lock onto somebody with positive attitudes, everybody else says, why does this guy like working with this person? I can say look at the attitude. Then they have to also make the adjustment and respond to this person’s attitude because they initiate the initiate improves everybody else around them.
6. Curiosity
Curiosity is very important to me. I want you to be curious. I know your level of curiosity by the questions you ask me.
We do a conference call on a weekly basis mentoring about 12 people in the company and you have to qualify to be a part of this call. I encourage them to be greedy in a good sense when we are discussing how to solve problems. Be greedy about the time on this call – you should ask the right questions. The people that ask the questions are either the fastest growing earners in the company or they’re top leaders. If we sit around each other, you’re not asking questions. I mean, what are we doing here? Everything is about asking questions. We did a video a couple of weeks ago called 10 questions every entrepreneur should ask. You need to watch that video. I also like people who are so curious that they go research how to’s. You give them a topic and on their own time, they go spend two days researching and learning about it. Or they say let me go research for three days and they gather info and then come back with a two-page report and say “look what I got Pat”. I actually did a video called How to research any topic. In the video, I give a very specific formula on how to research any topic. I don’t know. Any billionaire that is not good at researching stuff. They get the answers to the questions they want. All the billionaires I know, they ask tough questions and they find the answers to those questions. It’s such a common trait for them. So people I lock onto leaders are people that ask the right questions and are constantly curious.
7. Upbringing
There’s a reason why in the interviews I do I ask: who were you in high school? This is a question I’ve been asking for 20 years. When I ask somebody else who they were in high school, I kind of learn about them. If they played sports I’ll ask about the coach and if they were tough on them and how they got along with the coach? That gives me insight as to how they respond to challenging. I may even ask how were you in high school? They’ll say I was a 4.7 GPA. Valedictorian. Okay. This person follows instructions probably, well because they’re coachable but the upbringing, will tell me a lot of different things as well.
If somebody says I had a coach, he was so tough on me… based on the answer I can learn so much about how this person operates. I may also adjust how I give feedback because dealing with this person is more like walking on eggshells. Some people if you challenge a little too much, you’re going to get shut down. So you have to be very careful how you’re speaking with this person. Those initial questions and conversations tell you a lot about who you’re working with.
8. Being able to take criticism
This is a very tough thing for a lot of people. Uh, you know, sometimes give feedback and it depends on what departments, some departments, you ought to be very careful when you’re given criticism with because maybe they’re into creating a department. But some departments they’re different. It’s a different role. It’s a different responsibility or a different job. It’s a different type of thing. They’re doing whatever it is. If I’m developing somebody to be a leader amongst the group or to a face or to be somebody that I’m going to get them to maybe be an equity owner with the company, your position, that’s going to be an elite position with a lot of upside, a lot of income, a lot of future potential profit sharing, whatever it may be.
I am looking at if this person can take criticism from me when I’m giving them direction if they can, this means every time we have a hiccup, it’s not going to go back down because they shut down. We have a hiccup, feedback given and then boom, we have a hiccup, feedback given and then boom, we have a hiccup, feedback given and then boom. If they’re willing to take it, they’re probably also going to give it.
Let me explain. They may come and say: Hey, you know what I was thinking about the other day was that I don’t know if the system we have here is the mode is the most efficient system. Tell me why. See, I was thinking the other day, you know the way we do it right now when we have the products that come in and we sell an insurance policy, will we do this and what if we change this step from here to here?
I love that and the reason why you’re giving us criticism is because I am the CEO. If you’re giving criticism and the guy at the top, that means that’s coming to me. Perfect. This is a leader. I can give you criticism, but you’re also giving constructive criticism. There’s a magic to how you do it, but both ways, those that take it also give positive back. I’m not talking complaining, I’m talking about something that’s going to help the company grow faster and become bigger and more efficient.
9. Taking direction and being coachable
We announced a bonus a couple of weeks ago. It’s a $1 million bonus, a $3 million bonus and a $6 million cash bonus. Do you know who are the people that are on track to getting the highest bonus? A $6 million cash bonus is the most coachable executives in the company. Why is that? Coachability from a proven mentor speeds growth.
If you’re not being coachable and you question everything, you’re not, you know, speed increasing speed. One time they asked NBA coach Tex Winter who is the one player that knows the game the most? He says, oh my gosh, there’s one player I coach. He knew everything about the game. He says, what’s the guy’s name: Jordan Farmar. Jordan Farmar? He says, yes, he knew so much about basketball. You can’t teach this guy anything. Everything we ever told him. He said he knows it and he did it his own way. Guess what happened to Jordan? Farmar came and was supposed to be a star but ended up playing in China, Puerto Rico all over the place because he couldn’t make it an NBA cause no coach wanted a guy like that on his team because he questions every single thing. You need somebody to be able to take direction.
10. Character
Character isn’t just you going to church on Sunday and I read the Bible, I have character. I go to service, you know, whether, um, you know, whatever I do, synagogue, you know, anywhere I go, I’m so much of a character person I’m looking for way more than character. Character to me is your health. How you take care of your body. Character to me is your discipline, with your finances. Character to me is how you treat people around you. Character to me is you keeping your word. Character to me is knowing when you say you’re going to do something, you come through with it.
Character to me is you being able to be trusted with secret information that nobody else needs to know about. You may be the smartest person in the world, but if I give you data that I don’t want you to tell anybody, I don’t even want you to tell your wife about it or your husband about it. Nothing. This is secret information here. That itself is also part of character. When I find somebody who has that and to have these qualities, we can take over the world together. Very simple. And by the way, if I, if I wish I could have a video to show you how many times I’ve screwed up in this area, how many times lost money, lost time, business partners, so many different mistakes. So many of them, because I didn’t fully look at these kinds of formula, I never looked up and said, what are the 10 traits, Patrick, you look for when working with people.
Once we looked at this, I brought it in. It increased the probability of the results I got with the individual because my intuition on who I worked with became better and better and better. This is something you can get better at when you look at it. These are my 10 these 10 don’t have to be your 10 you can create your own, tend to be working with. But these are mine.
So by the way, you know, one of the things I want to tell you is we’re growing. I’m always looking for people. These are anything, anybody in anywhere. Uh, if you’re in the states, we’re looking for CEOs right now for the company, CMOs, marketers, digital marketing editors, salespeople who know Facebook ads, Youtube ads. But you gotta be an expert and you gotta know what you’re doing. If you’re any of those people and you’re looking to want to team up with us, send me a text at: 747.260.8461 or make a two or three-minute video. Send it to us with your resume info@valuetainment.com We’ll get back to you were looking for a lot of talent. Enjoy the video.
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