You Can Be a Peak Performer!

You Can Be a Peak Performer!

10 Steps to Unlimited Success

Which Anyone Can Take

Published by Dan Sherman at Smashwords

Dan Sherman

http://www.danshermancoaching.com

Copyright 2010 by Peak Performance Media. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The author and publisher have used their best efforts in preparing this book. Peak Performance Media and the author make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose and shall in no event be liable for any loss or profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.

The information presented herein represents the views of the author as of the date of publication. Because of the rate at which conditions change, the author reserves the right to alter and update his opinions based on new conditions. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided here, the author cannot assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, or omissions. Any perceived slights against individuals or organizations are unintentional.

Trademarks: All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Peak Performance Media is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Contents

Foreword: Now It's Your Turn

Introduction: You Can Be a Peak Performer!

One: Peak Performers Take Risks

Two: Peak Performers Start Where They Are

Three: Peak Performers Turn Mistakes Into Learning Opportunities

Four: Peak Performers Love Their Failures

Five: Peak Performers Go Boldly Into The Unknown

Six: Peak Performers Trust Their Intuition

Seven: Peak Performers Accept Themselves…So They Don’t Fear Rejection

Eight: Peak Performers Give Themselves All The Approval They Need

Nine: Peak Performers Count On The Security Inside Them

Ten: Peak Performers Laugh All The Way To The Bank

Conclusion: Take Action!

Bonus Chapters

One: The Peak Performer’s Quiz

Two: How to Create a Successful Online Business

Foreword

Now It's Your Turn

I know how you feel. I know what it’s like to want to succeed so bad that you can taste it on your tongue and feel it in your bones. I know that you work in a job you don't like, or wish to create a new business that you've always dreamed about and make it a huge success. I know that you wish you could spend more time with your family and have more financial security.

I get it. I've been there. It's frustrating to say the least. You keep asking yourself, Why are so many other people so successful and not me? What do those people have that is different or better then what I have to offer that makes them excel? When is it my turn?

I have some great news for you. Your time is now, and you are going to do it and you are going to get everything you've always wanted in life and business. Want to know how I know? Because you're about to be let in on the secrets of how successful people become successful. All you have to do is keep reading.

See, what Dan has written here is exactly what you need to finally break through and become a member of the super-secret society of ultra-successful people who get everything they want. The truth, as you will find out in this book, is that there are certain characteristics that make some people successful. Dan has collected countless stories from some of the world's most famous and rich individuals that will teach you how they did it and more importantly, how you're going to do it as well.

Isn't that what you've always wanted? Sure it is. Let's face it, we all want to work less and make more money. We all want to go into the office every day and work on things that we are passionate about and that are fun. Up until now, you've been told that you need to be a cog in the machine. You should wake up, have some coffee, and head into work, do your job, come home, have dinner, go to sleep.... wash, rinse, repeat... for the rest of your lives.

Wrong. Too many people don't believe they can be the next Richard Branson or Oprah Winfrey. Society wrongly convinces us that only a very small few lucky ones can live their dreams, and get rich and be famous, and unfortunately we accept it without much resistance. Again, wrong! It's only until you realize that ANYONE can do it that you finally can begin the journey into the next amazing phase of the life you always wanted to live.

Afraid of risk? The biggest risk you can take is to not give it a try. Peak performers, as you will find out from reading this book, figured out that the number one thing that stops success is fear of failure. Peak performers figured out that in order to live the life they've always wanted, on their terms, they have to take chances. Peak performers don't make excuses about not having enough business experience, or money or connections.

Enough! Now is the time to get inspired and get motivated and get to work! If you do, you may find the inner peak performer inside you and dramatically change your life for the better.

Read through the inspirational and awe-inspiring stories from the peak performers mentioned in this book and then answer the 40 questions at the end and decide for yourself. Do you have what it takes? Of course you do. The stories from this book prove that anyone can do it. Now it's your turn.

Jim Kukral

Introduction

You Can Be A Peak Performer!

Have you ever read about successful people and wondered how they did it? What were their secrets of success? Have you ever wished you could apply those secrets to your life?

Now you can. In this book you’ll find the secrets of peak performers. You’ll learn about how many of the most successful people in America started with little but desire to become the best in their chosen field of endeavor.

You’ll discover from their stories that peak performance is absolutely within your grasp. No matter who you are, if you apply the strategies outlined in this book, you will become a peak performer and enjoy the success and rewards that come with that distinction.

Just by picking up this book, you've indicated that you are not like the majority of people who are satisfied with mediocre lives. You want it all – and I encourage you to go after it. Let me reveal the strategies of peak performers which you can put into play the very day you read about them. Let me inspire you with their stories, as well as stories from my career as I have applied the principles of peak performance.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done until this moment, for each new day offers an opportunity to begin building your dreams. Now is the time for you to take that first step to becoming a peak performer.

Wishing you success,

Dan Sherman

One

Peak Performers Take Risks

The Man On The Moon

The day was July 20, 1969. A quarter of a million miles from Earth something fantastic was happening. In the barren vacuum of space, a 39-year-old former test pilot was climbing down the ladder of his spaceship to become the first human to walk on the moon. Only a bubble of oxygen in his helmet separated him from certain death. His lunar lander, dubbed The Eagle, was untried. No one knew if it would carry him and his co-pilot back to their ship, or falter and leave them there forever, 250.000 miles from the nearest gasp of life-giving air.

Bravely, gamely, Neil Armstrong descended the ladder, touched his boot to the chalky gray surface and said to the billions watching at home, That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Then for the next 21 death-defying hours Armstrong and his partner, Edwin Buzz Aldrin, collected rock samples, took photographs and set up scientific instruments.

Back on Earth, a 13-year-old boy sat with a 100 other youngsters in the lodge of a New Jersey summer camp. He stared intently at the small black-and-white television set flickering in the center of the room, watching in awe as Armstrong’s shadowy figure floated on the moon’s surface. This was a momentous event that brought the people of the world together for a brief moment. For the boy, this was a touchstone event that created a new standard of bravery and courage. The event would inspire him to constantly push himself beyond any barrier of fear. And it would teach him that any worthwhile achievement would only come through bold risk taking.

The starry-eyed camper was me. Since that day I’ve studied the peak performers of our time to discover what enables them to do the courageous things they do. I’ve sought to learn what makes them brave enough to forego safety and comfort in pursuit of their passion and dreams. What I’ve learned is that peak performers who get things done are willing to push through fear and take risks. This means they are willing to take bold action despite society’s conditioning to play it safe. Peak performers MAKE THINGS HAPPEN!

You may not be planning a walk in outer space in the near future. But to achieve anything worthwhile in life, you need to develop the qualities that Armstrong displayed, namely resolve and courage. Whether it’s moving up in the company you work for, striking out on your own, seeing more of this world or making an important life change – doing anything new requires taking a risk. This means you need to move from the safety of here to the vast unknown of there – by inching out on the limb of life.

Why don’t more people take risks and become peak performers? I think it comes down to one word, FEAR, and fear plays no favorites. It strikes deep in the hearts of men and women, young and old, married and single. FEAR is a universal phenomenon, an equal opportunity emotion. No one is born into this world fearless. They may act fearless, but fear is a part of our basic wiring and there is no owner’s manual to the human body which describes a way to change our circuitry.

Fear Is Worth Feeling

During the course of our lives we’ll face two kinds of fear: One is productive and can save your life in a crisis, while the other slows you down and keeps you from taking the risks you need to take to succeed.

The first kind of fear is the gut-level reaction you get that keeps you from physical danger. Let’s say you’re strolling through Yellowstone Park and along comes a big bear…and not Yogi Bear, either. He looks at you and suddenly you realize you’re this beast’s dinner. You feel fear. That’s great – you should! That fear starts pumping adrenaline through your body and you do the 100-meter dash out of the wilderness faster than you can say Roadrunner. In this case, fear has served you well.

The second kind of fear is psychological, and it occurs when we start predicting the future outcome of an event. When this happens, we experience: False Expectations Appearing Real. This fear occurs when we begin imagining all sorts of terrible results that haven’t happened yet. The fear grips us, paralyzes us and stops us in our tracks. We’ve lost the race even before we leave the starting blocks.

The unfortunate thing about this second kind of fear is that usually the very outcomes we imagine do not happen. If, say, you were to leave your job, you would find the world does not end. If you started a new business and it did not produce a fortune immediately, you would find that you still have your friends and family, your skills and talents and you're ability to make a go of it. Even if the worst possible thing that you can imagine happens, it turns out not to be as bad as you expected.

It is this second fear – the paralyzing kind that stops you from using your personal power to take risks and improve your life – that is the first barrier to push through on your road to peak performance. My suggestion is that you look closely at your fears – the excuses you have for not taking action on your dreams – and see them for what they really are. I believe that these psychological fears are remarkably similar to nightmares.

Let The Sun Shine

We all have nightmares – sometimes they are incredibly real and incredibly scary. But when we wake up in the morning and open the curtains, light pours into the room. At that point, the nightmares vanish and we are left with reality.

Fears act upon you in a similar way. They are real, there’s no doubt. Whenever we begin something new, we are bound to feel fear. It’s scary because we are never sure of the outcome of a new endeavor. But if you cast the light of logic and reason onto your fears and think of the worst possible thing that could happen, you’ll evaporate those fears into a mist you can walk through.

It takes time and practice to do this successfully, but the benefits of risk taking can be so rewarding that it’s well worth the effort. Take Neil Armstrong. His daring feat earned him a place in history and the accolades of people around the world. But it wasn’t his first risk. He had to practice risk taking to make it to that momentous day. He learned to fly early in life, gaining his pilot’s license at sixteen. Then he became a naval air cadet. That training led him to the very risky job of being a naval air pilot in the Korean War. After the war he became a civilian research pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics – the precursor to NASA – where he tested the latest in high-speed jets. He became an astronaut in 1962, and in 1966 piloted Gemini 8 in the first manual space-docking mission.

As a peak performer, Armstrong paid his risk taking dues. He learned to overcome fear through the steady, incremental gaining of confidence in his ability to pilot any type of craft in any kind of mission. He taught himself how to push through fear.

Send In The Marines

Ever since I watched Neil Armstrong risk his life to become the first man on the moon, I’ve been inspired to take risks. I also taught myself to overcome fear through the steady and incremental gaining of confidence in my ability to thrive in the face of risk. Because of this I’ve opened myself up to countless career opportunities and I’ve reaped substantial financial rewards. Let’s start at the beginning.

My experience with taking risks started when I was the captain of my wrestling team, the Columbia High School Cougars in Maplewood, NJ. I know they made me captain because I was the most possessed wrestler on the team, meaning I was the most dedicated. I lifted weights constantly, ate starvation dinners of water and celery to lose weight and wrestle at the lowest possible weight division, ran miles at night and attended wrestling camp every summer. I did everything I could to get the advantage over my opponents. I hated to lose at anything, so I tried to be the best in my sport.

When I stepped out on that red and white wrestling mat (or gladiator pit) twice a week to face yet another soldier whose sole purpose for the next six minutes was to twist me into a leotard-clad pretzel, I looked risk and danger in the eye. But I knew I was ready because of my conditioning and wrestling training at the hands of my coach, a tough ex-Marine. I also knew that the worst that could happen to me was a black eye or bloody lip – nothing as dire as what would happen to a NASA astronaut should there be a slip-up on his mission. So I marched into the fray with reckless abandon.

Wrestling was great training for lifelong risk taking, because I learned a helpful two-step process that I