323. Beware of "Execution Drift"—Dre Baldwin, Owner, Work On Your Game Inc.

Tom, thank you for having me on.

I'm excited for the opportunity.

My name is Dre Baldwin.

My title is I'm the owner and founder of Work On Your Game Incorporated.

Wonderful.

Wonderful.

Well, one of the things that I find so fascinating with the content and things that you share and talk through is talking about this idea of high performance and high performance operators, high performance mindset.

And so I I'm just curious as a starting point, and this might be a big question to start with, but what are some of the things that you find that separates high performers from average performers in a business setting? And in our world, we think maybe small businesses or even one franchisee in a franchise system that's an average performer versus a high performer.

Great question.

So let's just start with first principles.

To be high, you have to be better than average.

So whatever the average is, if you're aiming to go above that and you're actually hitting it, then that by definition makes it high.

And if we say high performer, then what we're saying is as an identity, right, as your entity or as you as an individual, which means you can't just high perform one time or now and then it's you are a high performer, which means you do it over and over and over again.

So it's performing and hitting results above the average and then doing it on a consistent basis to where it becomes part of your identity, not just something that you do.

For this high performer kind of, I guess, mindset, really, that you're talking about, how is it that folks build this, develop this? I mean, is this one of those things that sometimes I think of kind of a leadership myth? Oh, someone's just born with this.

How does that all happen?

No, people are not born with it.

Some people may have a natural amount of talent or inclination and maybe time they can fall into a business or industry where the product is right, the timing is right, the customer is right, and they hit some success almost by default without really trying consciously or intentionally.

But in order to do it consistently, at some point, it has to be some consciousness, some intentionality in it.

And it has to be done over and over again, which is going to require structure systems and disciplined execution.

So no, it's not something that people are born with.

It's something that can be acquired.

It can be developed, it can be sharpened, and it can be perfected, so to speak, to where you can predict what's going to happen.

And what happens is, how I just defined it a moment ago, a high-level performance which is above the average or maybe above your own standard if you're just trying to push yourself or push your company forward.

So it really starts with... setting a certain target that would put you above, again, whatever the average expectation would be, or if you don't know what that is, then continually pushing yourself past whatever you've hit in the past.