Life Has Been Hard - My 3 Steps For Building Resilience For High Performers | Ep 267
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What's up guys, welcome back to Build and today I want to talk about high performance and falling apart. I was in the gym today and it was a tough day. It was a tough day because of some changes I had to make on the team and some of the conversations I had to have to navigate those changes and I was just thinking about how those conversations would have gone seven years ago, eight years ago, even in just the beginning of my career and

I was reflecting on resilience and the concept of resilience and what that looks like when you're a high performer. And I wrote down some thoughts that I felt like would resonate with people listening to this podcast. Because I think if you listen to my podcast, you probably are a high performer, want to be a high performer, strive to do big things. You're looking to improve yourself in some way. And I wrote this for myself and also you. You know, I think most people misunderstand what high performance actually looks like.

And I think I used to misunderstand it because I would listen to people who made content and they never talked about the failures. They never talked about the flaws. They didn't, they never sounded off par. They always sounded perfect. They always sounded on. They always sounded like super motivating and like well scripted and polished. I think that that really threw me for a loop when I was first starting off in my career because I thought that I had to be like that. I thought that that was what good looked like. And I think a lot of people look at me or they look at other people and they think, wow,

She or he or they must never get tired. They must never crash. They must never have an off day. They must never cry. They must never scream. They must never... You look at people and think that they are inhuman. They are the exception to the rule, right? And I'm here to say that that could not be further from the truth. What I've come to learn in working with high performers, helping high performers, speaking to hundreds of them every month, is that high performers still fall apart. In fact, I still fall apart. I still have moments where I break down. I still hit my own limits.

The difference isn't that we don't fall apart. The difference is that we recover faster. Okay, when you're a high performer, you don't stay down, you don't dwell, you don't spiral for days. And that's really because you put in place systems, you have the awareness, and you have a sense of urgency to bounce back because you understand it's actually better for you, not worse.

And that's really what I want to talk about today. I think that a lot of people assume that top performers are somehow immune to pain, to pressure or failure. And they imagine this like upwards curve of success that like never dips. It's linear. And I think we've all seen that the picture that I've seen on social media a million times of entrepreneurship. It's like how it looks versus how it feels. And it's like it looks like this linear line. But what it feels like is this like crazy up and down roller coaster that people are going on.

And that's just the truth, right? If you ask any elite athlete, a founder, an operator, an artist, a celebrity, right, they're going to all tell you the same thing. There are still days when it sucks, where nothing works, when you're tired, when you feel fucking stuck, or when you're burnt out. And I have those days just as much as I have good days.

And so the moment when your mind goes blank on the middle of a call or in the middle of the time you're supposed to fire somebody or the moment that you feel like your body is going to quit during a lift and you can't do anymore or the moment you walk into the gym and you feel like, fuck, I don't want to be here today. The moment where you have to get on a call to rally your team and you're like, I can't even rally my fucking self. That happens to me and us too. And you're not broken. You're not wrong. And you're not inferior if you feel that.

You're just human. The only thing that separates average performers from high performers is what happens next. Do you sit in it for days? Do you let it completely derail your momentum in your life? Or do you feel it? Do you face it? And do you do something about it? That's what defines you. And it took me a long time to understand this, that it's not about avoidance of mistakes or about avoidance of failure. It's about what you do in response to those things.

And I think oftentimes that then leads to, okay, what does recovering from adversity, recovering from a bad day, a bad moment, a slip up, a mistake, a failure really look like? Okay. Recovery is not about waiting for motivation. That's a fucking myth.

I'm just going to be real with you guys. Like I have lost over a hundred pounds. I've gone from drinking and drugs to sober and having a great life. I've gone from being friends with fucking shitheads to friends with amazing people who are changing the world. I've gone from having no business to running a multi hundred million dollar business. I can tell you, I'm still waiting for this motivation. I'm still waiting. I'm still fucking waiting because there are days when I feel motivated, but it is so far and few between. Like it really is.

It's not about waiting for that motivation. It's also not, you know, rolling on Instagram, looking at Facebook, you know, scrolling your calendar, avoiding emails, hoping that you're just going to bounce back. Oh, I hope somebody finds a solution for me. I hope somebody can solve this problem for me. You know, I hope somebody is going to help me with this problem I have. It's like, no, real recovery from adversity is intentional and it's disciplined.

Okay. It's choosing to put the reps back in, even when you don't want to put the fucking reps in. And it's rebuilding yourself piece by fucking piece, returning to the basics, whatever that might be. Maybe it's food, it's sleep, it's training, it's priorities, it's being fucking nice to people, whatever it might be. It's returning back to baseline. Okay. And so resiliency is how fast you can return back to baseline. Right. So I'll give you an example of this right now.

I have gone through so much health stuff in the last four months. You know, one infection turns into three more, turns into a million doctors, turns into all this shit that happens in my body because one thing affects another. And I have not been in my tip-top shape. I have not, I haven't, I didn't until three days ago. Hadn't worked out in three months. I don't even know the last time I didn't work out in three months. I hadn't been walking as much. I hadn't been able to spend as much time with my husband. I hadn't been able to spend as much time with my friends. I hadn't been able to travel as much. I hadn't been able to do as much content.

I felt like shit when I was showing up for my team. I felt like I needed help, but help wasn't there. And rather than sit and dwell on how bad I feel, I just kept asking myself, what is one fucking thing I can control? What is one thing that I can do in this moment that I have power over to take a step forward, to take a step away from the pain into my future? And that is what has gotten me through these last few months. Just like, what's one thing?

No, I don't like what's happening right now. No, I don't like how I feel right now. No, I have no fucking motivation to do these things. But what is one thing that I can do right now that is under my control? You know, it's not me waiting on somebody else to bring me the thing. It's not me waiting on somebody else to bring me the solution. What I've learned over time is I'm my own best advocate. You have to advocate for your life. When you fail, when you make a mistake, when you fall down, there's nobody coming to pick you fucking up. And every time you do let somebody pick you back up,

rather than help you back up, right? You want people cheering you on, but you don't want them picking you back up from the floor. You've got to do that for yourself. Otherwise, you lose respect for yourself. And I think more importantly, you have to decide that a setback doesn't get to rewrite your identity. It doesn't rewrite your identity. It is not who you are, right? You might feel like a mess for a day, right? But you act like a professional. That is high performance. That is recovery, right?

And there's a quote that I really love. My engine stalls too. I just refill faster. And I've always resonated with that, which is like, that's my mentality. It takes fucking practice, guys. Like I will have days where say, I know I have a tough week ahead and I'm like, man, this is going to be tough mentally, physically from a time perspective, but I'm, you know, I'm going to tackle it. And then that week comes and then I get thrown two more curve balls that I couldn't have even anticipated. I'm like, mother of God, how am I going to find the energy to handle all of this?

And I sit there and sometimes I'll have a moment. I had a moment about a week ago and the overwhelm washed over me when I was solving one problem that was important and then an urgent problem that I needed to solve in the next hour hit me. And for two seconds, I just started crying at my desk. I was just like, oh my God, it's all on me. And I knew in that moment, I was like, I don't have help. This is me. I have to solve this. And for a moment there, for two minutes,

I let it wash over me. I felt overwhelmed. I cried at my desk. And then I said, okay, let's do something about this. You can do this. You can fucking do this, Layla. You can figure this out. And if you don't figure it out, what's the worst case scenario? Okay, this happens. Okay, you know what? You'll live through it. You'll be better for it. You've never not been better for bad situations. And guys, that right there is the difference between when I wasn't a high performer and now when I am. Because when I wasn't,

I thought that making mistakes made me not a high performer. I thought that when I made a mistake or when something bad happened, that the problem was the problem, not my reaction to the problem. But you see, in those two minutes when I cried at my desk, that would have been days 15 years ago. 15 years ago, I would have been like, "Fuck everything."

I want to quit. I don't want to do this. What does this mean about me for how I feel right now? Maybe it means this isn't what I should be doing with my life. I would make it mean all sorts of things rather than lots of things happen at the same time. I had a moment of overwhelm. Yes, I cried. I'm a fucking human. There's nothing wrong with that. But I'm telling you, this is like where you have to practice, right? And now here's where most people get stuck. They expect that resilience is like,

to be automatic, right? They think like, I'm smart. I'm successful. I've accomplished all these things. Like I should just bounce back, right? They're like, I am all these things. Why is this not working? Why am I not bouncing back fast? And I have this come to me a lot where people say, I just can't seem to get myself out of this funk. I just can't seem to figure this out. I just can't seem to navigate this correctly. I just can't seem, Layla, to get back to what I was doing. I can't seem to get back to that baseline. Here's the thing, okay? Bouncing back is a skill.

Resiliency is a skill. And if you've not built that skill, you crumble when you're under the pressure. And when you have to be put in a situation where you have to be resilient, you're like, "Oh shit, I'm actually not that resilient." And you might not say the word resiliency, but that's what it is. And this is what I see happen over and over.

Right. What happens is that people say they personalize the failure. They say, Layla, like you don't understand. Like I'm I'm fucking weak. Like I can't do this. Like I need somebody stronger. Like I need to hire someone to do this. I need to like I think I need to sell my company. I need to. What? Right. It's like you take it so personally. Like, oh, my gosh, you are so special that you failed in a way.

that is so unique to this universe that there's no coming back from it. Nobody has failed to this degree before. Nobody has failed similarly to you before. You're so special that you are the only person on this earth that can't figure this out and that must need help. And it's funny because I know the way I'm saying it, but this is how I say it to myself. I'm like, people have had these situations before and they've overcome them before. And if they have, then so can I. So can I.

And here's the thing. The next thing people do is they wait for inspiration instead of taking action. Listen, if you're sad, depressed, frustrated, angry, you're laying in bed, you're watching Netflix, you're avoiding life and responsibilities because of something bad that happened, I am fucking here to tell you that that's not going to help. Taking action will help you. Waiting, waiting to feel inspired, waiting to feel motivated, it's not going to help.

It is not going to help you. It will only make things worse. You are making it poor when it just rained. Now there's a fucking hurricane. I can't tell you the amount of people that reach out to me and they're like, Leila, I'm depressed. And I'm like, heard, I've been there before. What are you doing? And they're like, I'm in bed all day. I'm doing this. I can't seem to get out of bed.

Your legs work, right? You can get out of bed. What are you saying? The way that you're talking to yourself is the problem. The way that you're responding to sadness and frustration and moments of depression is the problem. Guys, I remember being there. I would say, I can't get out of bed. I'd be in bed all day. The blinds are closed. I'm so depressed. But I didn't make it any better.

And same with being angry. Same with being frustrated. It's like, "Oh gosh, well I don't want to take action until the feeling goes away." If you take action, the feeling will go away. It's not the other way around. You must take action first. Okay? Emotion follows motion. If you get up and you move your body, if you get up and you do things, if you get up and you see friends, I will tell you this: you will feel better, whether you want to or not. Because that's how the brain and the physiology of our bodies work.

Okay, so you can't wait for inspiration. You have to take action before you feel inspired. There's no inspired action happening here. Now, the third thing I see is that people go into isolation instead of leaning for people on support. I will tell you this, when I am facing adversity, when I'm having a hard time, the hardest thing I've had to learn is how to lean on people, how to ask for help, how to call for people to support me during that time. Even just the other day,

I had to have a series of really tough conversations and I was working on some really just nasty issues. And I had to make a couple of phone calls. And I said to Alex, I said, can you come into my office? And he came in there. I'm on the phone. I'm handling the convo. He's not talking. And he says, he's like, why am I in here? Like, what do you need me for? And I was like, honestly, honestly, so seldom. But like right now, honestly, emotional, emotional support. I just need support. I just need you here. You make me feel good. I love you. You make me feel safe. I just want you here while I'm doing this and I'm having these conversations.

And he was like, okay, that's great. I'll do that for you, sweetie. And that was something that used to be so hard for me to do because I felt like what a waste of time, what a waste of this. But I'd rather be honest up front with people like where I could use support to do something that's better for all of us, right? And if you're leading a family, if you're leading a team, if you're leading, then you doing well for that team, you're doing well in general as an individual helps the whole team. And so there's gonna be times where you wanna lean on other people to help you.

And for me, I've realized that these are times when we fall, when we slip up, when we make a mistake. Learning to be resilient, part of that is learning how to use your support network. It's learning to lean on people and allow them to help you, allow yourself to lean on other people at times. And I will say, it's still probably the hardest thing for me to do to date because I've

for most of my life since I was a kid. Like I had to lean on myself. I didn't even have a mother to lean on. And so I learned to just take care of myself, just handle it myself, handle my feelings, handle my responsibilities, handle my life on my own. But man, does it feel nice when you finally just relax and say, you know what? I can have other people help me carry the load.

I don't need to carry it on my own. And here's the thing, when people repeat these patterns, you know, they personalize the failure, they wait to be inspired before taking action, and they go into isolation, this cycle just repeats, right? And what you see is if you look at people who are high performers, is you'll notice that they don't live there. They don't live in that spot. I call it the valley, like the valley of despair. They don't live in the valley of despair. They don't do that. They don't waste their time wondering what does it all mean?

They just do something about it. They say, fuck it. Let me take one step forward. Let me try one thing. Let me see if I can push one thing forward. Which brings me to this. How do you actually build that skill? How do you become resilient? How do you bounce back? Right? The first thing is that you have to re-anchor to structure. Okay, the fastest way to build momentum is to go back to non-negotiables. Maybe that means wake up at the same time. Move your fucking body. Eat well. Track your work.

Set one thing to do for the day and get that shit done. Structure is an anecdote for spiraling. It forces you to act your way back into confidence. Because remember, confidence is an output, not an input. Action is the input to confidence. And so you're not going to think your way out of this. You're going to act your way out. You don't need to feel good to take action. You don't need to even think good thoughts to take action. You just need to get your body to do the thing, to take the step, to do the rep, to eat the food, whatever it is.

You will feel better as a consequence. That's it. Your job right now is to get your body to move, to do these things. Wake up at the same time. Move your body. Eat clean. Track your work. Set a win. I don't need you to feel good, and I don't even need you to think good thoughts. I just need you to do it. That's the first thing. The second thing is that I want you to set, this is going to sound weird, a minimum viable identity. Okay, what does that mean? You're like, what? Okay, when you feel off,

You do not need to be your best self. You just need to be your baseline self. And so this is a trick I've got, which is like I ask myself, what would the disciplined version of me do right now, even at 50% capacity? And so what that means is that I'm still going to show up even if I'm not at 100%. So what's that look like for me? Maybe I'm not going to work out, but I am going to go on a walk. Maybe I'm not going to eat to a T as I plan to, but I'm going to eat two out of three meals like I planned.

Maybe I'm not going to get all the work done I want to this week, but I'm going to tackle this one project. Right? So if you're a leader, go communicate something to your team. Go support somebody on your team. If you're an athlete, do a minimum viable workout. Get some reps in, even if they're light. And if you're building something right now, go make progress on that project and ship that shit. The point is that you need to set a minimum viable identity for yourself. Even on your worst days, these things happen.

I know for me, anchoring in somewhat of routine, even on the days I'm sick, I'm tired, I've had something terrible happen, it helps me get back to my baseline. It helps me do better. And the last thing I will say is this, the third thing you do is you create a bounce back ritual.

Okay, this is a personal system for when you fall apart. Okay, so when you're like, holy shit, I do not feel good. This is not good. I do not like what's happening right now. This might look something like you take a 10 minute walk in silence. It might look something like you're going to call a friend or a mentor. Literally just write down three things that you could do that'll help you bounce back.

It might mean that you need to go listen to a book or listen to a certain podcast. It should be something that's automatic and easy for you to do. And so the moment that you realize that you're slipping, you execute it. I know I've got at least two books that when I feel like I'm slipping up, when I feel like I'm about to have a moment, when I feel like I'm, oh, I'm off balance, things aren't feeling good, I have a book that I'm going to listen to. And I know that when I listen to that book, it helps me recenter myself and really refocus. My favorite thing to do is listen to that book when I'm taking a walk.

always feel better after. So here's the thing. High performers are not robots and they're not superhumans, right? They are just obsessed with getting up faster. And so we don't waste our time pitting ourselves. We don't let fear or shame or exhaustion dictate what we do. We don't. We act, we adjust, and we reload.

So what that means is that you are allowed to fall apart. You are allowed to slip up. You are allowed to make mistakes. You are allowed to fail. That's okay. Tell yourself that. You just don't allow yourself to stay there. You don't allow yourself to live in the valley. And so the next time that you feel that way and you've stalled and you're like, I need to be resilient. I need to do what Layla said. Ask yourself, what's my structure I can go back to? What identity can I have from? And what can I do today, right now to bounce back faster?

Okay, and that is the difference between average and elite. Elite is not perfect.