High-Performance Success: The Importance of Hunger and Sacrifice

87% of people worldwide are unhappy due to lack of self-worth, hunger for change, and unwillingness to make sacrifices for high performance.

### Dan Peña: The Path to High Performance
* 💪 Dan Peña emphasizes that it is "bloody hard to be a high-performance person," with only **12.4% of people worldwide considered happy**, as per a 2016 Gallup poll.
* 🔥 High-performance individuals must be willing to **work harder than anyone else** and make significant sacrifices, such as **working 60 hours a week** and **missing holidays**.
* 🧠 Peña believes that the key to becoming a high-performance person is to have **high self-esteem**, which can be developed by surrounding oneself with people who already have **high self-esteem**.
* 💡 According to Peña, "success leaves clues," and individuals like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett all share the trait of being "**ball busters**" and **extremely driven**.
* 📉 Peña points out that modern society's "bubble wrap life" and fear of failure have led to a decline in **testosterone levels and sperm counts**, suggesting that people are becoming **less resilient**.
* ❌ Peña criticizes the "snowflake" mentality, where people "**melt under pressure**" and are overly concerned with **being liked or fitting in**.
* ✨ The best advice Peña offers is to "**just do it**," as many people fail to take action due to **fear, procrastination, and the opinions of others**.
* 🏆 Ultimately, being a high-performance person is a full-time commitment that requires **pushing oneself beyond the comfort zone** and always **striving to be the best**.

it's bloody hard to be a high-performance person. Gallup did a poll in 2016 worldwide. 87.6 percent of all the people on the planet. 87.6 percent of all the people on the planet are unhappy. Why? Why are they unhappy? Because they don't have what they perceive as what they deserve. But it's not what you deserve in life. It's what you earn in life. I came from a background. My dad beat me. I got a lot of trouble. I found a way to turn it around. The kids, the millennials, give up too easily. I mean, you have to want it more than the air and that you breathe. I said you can do it if you want it bad enough. The operative part of that is if you want it bad enough. And virtually everybody that's ever come through the seminars never wanted it as much as I did. Nobody was as hungry. How many of you can say that you're serious about it? How many of you can actually say that you're trying to be all you can be?

now I won't insult you by asking you to raise your hand because you'll just lie. We all know what the real answer is, don't we? You're not. And so if you want to be all that you can be, and if you want to be a high-performance person, I did know Steve Jobs, I do know Elon Musk, I do know Warren Buffett, and they're all ball-busters. Success leaves clues, kids, and they all have one thing in common: they're ball-busters, they're hard as nails. What kind of sacrifices are you willing to make to be super successful? 60 hours a week, nobody is willing to work 60 hours a week to be successful. Nobody is wanting to miss a holiday. If you booked a holiday and something important happened in business, would you tell your family to go on the holiday without you and you're not gonna go? Nobody said yes. The high-performance people, the one thing that they all have in common is they're hungry, hungry for a better life, hungry for

change hungry for the tough love their parents didn't give them so is that what it needs you you have to be hungry you you need to feel the pain growth only comes through pain no pain no gain because you're not willing to make any sacrifices to be high performance i still work 50 60 hours a week and i haven't had to work in 35 years ted turner just gave his 75th anniversary party on cnn a few months ago and he has he makes a couple of comments and he says number one and i'm not suggesting this for everybody it's how i live though uh first ten years of my uh starting cnn i slept on my couch i had i didn't have an apartment bill gates slept in the office steve jobs slept in the office and i can go got a whole list now these are super successful mega wealthy guys i slept in my office not everybody's willing to make that sacrifice but it's not the only thing but even if

you don't sleep in your office if you want to send your kids to a better school. If you want to be able to take care of your mother when she gets dementia. If you want this all takes money when I my children aren't getting any of my money when I die. Not not one centavo, not one penny. And uh, uh, two of my kids are cool with it, one of them's not so cool with it. I'm not gonna, you know, I think Andrew Carnegie, by the way, Andrew Carnegie, arguably the richest, most successful entrepreneur of all time, he said the best thing that you can have for a child is him to be born into poverty. And I agree, lack of self-esteem, lack of self-worth. Now they think they have self-worth, they think because they made a few bucks. But in actuality, and when they measure it against the other eight, ten, twelve people sitting around the table, they realize or they start to question, hell, maybe I was just lucky.

now all of us when you're only a one-trick guy or gal think was i lucky now i've done it so many times i know i wasn't lucky i might have been lucky the first time but i haven't been lucky the 15th 20th 45th i know that okay but maybe i was lucky the first time my life changed when i went i was pretty much a a haphazard kid got a lot of trouble got arrested four or five times thrown in jail and this is with my dad it's a cop but then i went i volunteered for the draft in 1966 at the height of the vietnam war and i went to ocs and that changed my life because it was the really first real high performance thing that i could measure myself against other with other people two-thirds of all fortune 500 ceos have one thing in common military background really two-thirds of those two-thirds have something else martial arts what do you learn in martial arts brian

discipline focus a lot of people don't believe they deserve to be there i convince them and we have these drills why you belong there a lot of people that come there you know with money that have made money think they made it by accident right i just had one of my superstars who's made a hundred million bucks tell me in the last week you know i'm not sure i'm gonna have another lucky accident and i said you did it i mean you know you tried a lot of things i belie thomas edison i would i wouldn't have done it ten thousand times okay i would have hired an engineer from mit to do it but i mean uh i've tried a lot of things nobody's failed at more things than i have and the first hundred million are successes but i could write a book about failures that would be i mean because i've tried a lot of different things because failure is just testing and uh one of the reasons i've been so successful in generating this equity and

value in my kids, and I call you all kids, is because I convince him that making a mistake is okay. Your parents probably told you you can be anything you want, but you can't, that's horse. You can't if it's all juxtaposed. [Music] So, but what you tell them is that you can do anything you want that you have passion for because that eliminates most of the crap because most people don't follow their dream. You know like they say in the sound of music you can't have a dream come true unless you have a dream. Now I still dream. I dream in technicolor. I say my affirmations and goals every single night. It's bloody hard to be a high performance person. [Music] So let's dive into your story a bit more. Tell us about East L.A when I when I went when I was there as an adolescent it was almost all Mexican and my father was a policeman. My mom was a housewife. My mother came to the United States she crossed the Rio Grande River.

in 1924, as an illegal alien with her mother, and the we lived almost right where, uh, downtown Los Angeles is. And my dad was a cop, and so it was easy for him to get to work, and so I got in a lot of trouble, you know, done some awful things while I was a little kid, especially. And the finally, they threw me out of the school district, so we had to move to another school district, uh, and my mother thought that I would be, um, better there because she thought it was the environment. She didn't understand it was me. So then when we moved to the valley, which is called the San Francisco infamous now, and so I went there and I got in a lot of trouble. I was arrested five times. Finally, I volunteered for the draft in 1966, more or less at the height of the Vietnam War, and, uh, the army made a man out of me. Uh, I became an officer, and the rest is really history, and it was the first high-performance thing I ever did. I didn't understand.

other than i had a father who would look like a superhero alpha male role model other than that he was my benchmark. He was very athletic. He was an all-american athlete in high school and I could barely chew gum and walk at the same time. I was very uncoordinated. So, uh, my aggression I took out on other people. I fought. I was I could get in fights real well. I was over. I've always been a big kid and so, um, the when I went off in the army, the first high performance thing I did was become an officer and I got out of the military quite by accident. I was going to stay in the military because it was perfect for me. It was almost impossible for me to get in trouble. The and they gave you crazy things to do which I enjoyed and then one day I got a special award. Uh, one day I'm sitting in the officers club and a two-star general said, Danny, why don't you buy the drinks for all of us? And I said, I bought the.

drinks. You don't ask the two-star general why. And then he said the magic words had changed my life. Danny, a young man like you, could get rich in the civilian world. And I swear to you, a light bulb went off over my head. I never thought of rich Danny Pena in the same sentence. And I applied to get out of the army. So I went from a regular army officer to out. And I went back to school. A four-year education in two and a half years. And I almost got straight A's. Um, because it was easy. It was easy. I didn't realize how bright I really was until I got in the military. Because in grammar school in East L.A., they used to stand me in a corner with a dunce cap. And if I was bad, they'd put me in a corner. Then they'd put me in a closet. And they'd keep me in the closet until my mother or my grandmother came to pick me up. But my father told me, sticks and stones can break your bones, Dan, but words can

never hurt you. [Music] The first thing I did is I look for anomalies in the federal bidding process for federal products. I saw there was a the refineries across the United States were only 60 percent being used um and yet there was a jet fuel shortage with the U.S. Air Force. So I put two and two together. I connected the dots and I bid on federal contracts. And the first year in business, I did fifty million five hundred and forty thousand dollars in business with one employee, me um. And then when I had that money, I went out and I saw saw oil and gas partners drilling for oil and gas. So I continued to build. Well, I bought an option on oil and gas properties for 60 60 dollars and I turned it into 160 million dollars in 99 days. From there, I was overnight success. And so I took it public and I grew the company. I mean up to about 500 million. Excuse me. And then the shareholders took me out and they threw me out with a lot of

money. So, I didn't cry. I don't feel sorry for me. And um, I've been uh, I decided I wanted to do something else. Um, because I already was ostensibly pretty rich. And I tried to teach university for a year. I found that very unfulfilling. The system that was devised 70 uh, years ago after World War II, you go to work with a company, you work 30, 40, 45 years, you get a pension, and you can live in a picket house with 2.4 dogs, 6.4 uh, grandchildren, and hopefully your original wife. Well, that model is dead. That is impossible anymore. And on top of it, you have 150 to 250,000 in debt for going to school. And some kids will be 45 years old and still be paying off student debt. But that's a load of crap. Down deep into your soul, you know there is no get-rich-quick scheme that's legal. So, for a millennial, um, it sounds trite, something they believe in. If you change a billion lives.

you'll get wealthy. What do you believe in enough to quit your job to try to change a billion lives? Most of the kids just want to know if they get paid twice a month. Most of people watching this thing should either not be in business if they've got one or close them down if they got one because you got in business for all the wrong reasons and you don't have the balls to close them down because of what other people are gonna say. You don't. You have no idea how um limitless it is when you're not afraid of what other people think or say. You have no idea. There's not two people watching this thing that even has a concept of what it is to act as if you have no limits to your abilities, zero. But you have to do something every day that scares you, scares you. And um, that's uh, a take off from Helen Keller who said, or not said, she was deaf, dumb, everything, she couldn't do anything. And she said every day she did something to

scare herself well. If you and I had all those afflictions, just getting out of bed would be scary enough. And so, I decided that one of the differentiations between the people that got the most out of the week-long seminar and the year-long free mentoring for me is people that really pressed themselves hard. So, I translated that into they've got to do something and listed what they did to scare themselves every single day. Is that the essence of really what you do, is getting people to take more risk or to get out of their comfort zones, and then the wealth comes later. It's not just uh out of their comfort zones, it's the change of reality, okay. You know your reality is different than my reality, and you know your followers' realities are all different, uh but it's to change your reality and to make yourself uh accountable. That's not just getting outside your comfort zone, making yourself accountable, okay, uh not just accountable, not accountable to somebody else, accountable to you, me, you know yourself because that's the

ultimate ultimately, that's the only person you should be accountable to is yourself, and we grow up in my judgment wrongly that the, that we don't hold ourselves accountable enough. We just don't. We've learned, to come up with reasons why we can't do this, reasons why it's okay not to do this, reasons why you didn't follow up on time, reasons why I told the guy, Get back to him by Wednesday, it's now Friday, oh it's the weekend, I'll now get back to him, you know, on Monday. And, life has gotten simpler now with the internet and with email and the things where the communication is almost instant. You think it should be easier but it's not. I, I use the analogy, 25-30 years ago, you're going to buy a 100 million dollar company, your due diligence would be three, four, five weeks, and it'd take you three, four, five weeks to close the deal, okay, a month and a half, six to eight weeks. With the internet, it should take less time because the

information is instantaneous. It takes us twice as long to close a deal now, twice as long. There's no reason for that. Things haven't gotten twice as, but somebody has to put their name on the line. Somebody wants to push off the accountability. Somebody would rather have Brian sign off on it so I go home early on a Thursday, knowing you're going to come in early on a Monday, and your signature will be on the document instead of mine because I don't want to be accountable. And so the kids today have this need. It's like this thirst for guidance, and the kids do better in the year-long mentor program than the older kids. So the kids in their teens and 20s do better than the guys in their 40s and 50s. That's because the guys in their 40s and 50s got a lot of baggage, bad habits, bad habits, you know, and it's tough to get rid of them. And the motivation gets you started.

good habits keep you going. Most people just have piss-poor habits, and you know, I've had these same habits for about 50 years now, okay, about 50 years, and I don't even think about it. I mean, it's just like brushing my teeth, taking a shower, I just do it. And one of the other interviews that I did with you, I said, When I do feel whimpish, which isn't too often, I just say, 'Come on,' and I just go out and do it. And I do that about my entire life, everything about it. And I know that if I had to build up these habits 20, 30 years ago, you know, at age 70, I certainly wouldn't be doing this. I don't fail very often. I do fail. You're pretty open about all the failures. Yeah, I'm not ashamed of them, right? That's what's made me who I am. You said failure is just testing, correct? It's just testing, and I don't know, and I'm quick to pull the

trigger two two ways. I'm quick to pull the trigger in trying something and I'm quick to pull the trigger and closing something. That's what you're teaching these kids, correct? It's not just business. No, okay. How to stand up like you had a pair, which gets us into the snowflake. Oh, you hadn't used that word two years ago. No, I didn't. What's a snowflake? A snowflake is a kid, a guy, or a gal melt under pressure, as opposed to what they tell me, you know, God. Every snowflake is different, Mr. P. You know, there's not one snowflake that's the same as the other. The trillions and trillions, I said, yes, that's correct, that's correct. And he says, and so we deserve to be here just like, no, that's not correct. In your opinion, snowflakes melt under pressure. Some people, most people in my judgment, don't really want to be successful if it takes any sacrifice whatsoever. Everybody's scared and death of what might happen and so they, they

they want to come across as your friend. They don't want, they don't want people to say bad things about you and it gets back to athletics. Our three children, which are millennials, we had right at the the outer edge as our oldest son, but they were in athletic programs in schools just when the no win, you know, you participate ribbons. And I took them out of athletics, and that was the beginning of the deterioration of my my judgment, manly education. [Music] Even the guys that make it to your castle, correct, over the 20 grand, correct, even they don't want to be successful. Well, once they think or once they see what it costs in human resources, that that ain't for me. It's not what happens to us in life, it's how we interpret what happens to us in life, it's how we're trained emotionally to cope with information that we don't like. You can't hurt, sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you. That's what the scene was when

i was maybe 1 to 15, and so i just, you know, shine it on, and i said if you want to make some of it, we'll step out and then off, and we'll see who's who's right and who's wrong. that's how we used to settle who's right, who's wrong, the guy that's standing over the guy that's on the ground, and a lot of times i got the [ __ ] kicked out of me. i don't know if you can protect people to a fault. i know when you have kids, as you do now, i mean, you can protect kids to a fault, of course, that's why we have snowflakes, because they've let it bubble wrap life. my dad, you know, i'm glad, i'm glad he's not alive to see this, because the, the more snowflakes we have, the less, the less the possibility of the worth making it, okay. would you want the earth, yeah, i do, uh, and um, men aren't what they used to be, men aren't.

the guys from the 14th and 1500s that sailed the ocean blue to find various parts of the of the world right that's hurting us i mean deficit in a devastating manner. [Music] i gave you a couple stats and then on the same again they're worth repeating. in 1986 the average uh uh man's handshake pressure was 118 pounds. 30 year old man 118 pounds 2016 96 pounds a woman 1986 was 105 pounds today 110 pounds. [Music] 110 pounds testosterone levels and sperm counts tested uh 50 years ago and today uh they're producing 60 to 70 percent the amount of testosterone levels and sperm counts as they did. we're dying out so you're i mean look i remember when i was up at the castle i said they don't make him like dan pena anymore and we should cherish for what he tells us. you're kind of giving us a glimpse into what we were in the past and you're trying to remind us that there were good

things there yeah and what do you say against all the people that say well violence isn't the solution and we should embrace the feminine side and all of that stuff. okay i'll say if love worked there would be there would be no personal development. love doesn't got the job done okay love doesn't work religion doesn't work nothing works other than if you have self-esteem as a human being. you're a better person you're a better father you're a better husband better why whatever you know you're a better you're a better citizen. you take a life more seriously if you have self-esteem if you have self-worth. gallup poll did in uh 2016 2016-17 uh a study 86.6 of the people on the planet of the five or seven point six or seven billion are unhappy. they've they've uh locked out they're they're not looking for anything in life and i say i'd like to find the 13 because most people are living hand to

mouth. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck. [Music] Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Ted Turner. Success leaves clues, kids. I just named five of the greatest names in business in the last 150 years, and they all have one thing in common. They're ball busters. They're hard as nails. Where does that leave you? I still work 50-60 hours a week, and I haven't had to work in 35 years. You're not willing to do anything. You're not willing to sacrifice anything to be a high-performance person. I don't want to be like that. No, no. Most people don't. I want to be liked. Yeah, well, see, you want to fit in. I don't. I'm the only speaker that you're ever going to hear that really, with all his heart, doesn't give a [ __ ] if I leave here you liking me. I did something wrong. If we would like to improve the quality of our lives personally and professionally, what would be your advice? What can we do?

what is most important. Well, the most important thing is self-esteem. Um, the people that do we read about, the people that we admire, the Elon Musks, the Steve Jobs, the Warren Buffets, etc., all have one thing in common: they have extremely high self-esteem. Of course, you've heard me say this before, self-esteem is built in the first seven or eight years of life and, unfortunately, we're with our parents the first seven or eight years of life, ergo we don't have too much high self-esteem. But to build high self-esteem, and the way you build high self-esteem if you're 25, 35, or 45, is to be around, surround yourself with other people that have high self-esteem. Show me your friends and I'll show your future. And so you can still, you can reverse your childhood by who you associate with. How do you do that? Well, you find people that are where you want to be, but they're already there. You're 22 years old, you're 32, you're 41.

years old, and there's a guy or a gal who's 45 years old who is where you want to be. They've accomplished a lot of things. If you're into, they're saving the world, they're using their money for good causes, go associate with those people, be around those people. And they're easy to find, but they're not going to knock on your door, they're not going to come to your apartment or your flat and ask you, Oh, can I help you? I had self-esteem. I didn't know until I got grown up and was an adult that everybody didn't have self-esteem. I didn't understand that. I didn't realize that everybody didn't have self-confidence. I didn't realize that everybody didn't have self-worth. Gallup did a poll in 2016 worldwide. 87.6% of all the people on the planet, but we'll just round it off, 87% of everybody that walks the face of the earth, 7.65 billion people, are unhappy. The high-performance people, the one thing that they all have in

common is they're hungry hungry for a better life hungry for change hungry for the tough love their parents didn't give them so is that what it needs you you have to be hungry you you need to feel the pain growth only comes through pain no pain no gain it's the same in life um if love got the job done you wouldn't need podcasts you wouldn't need seminars it doesn't tough love gets the job done but being liked doesn't get you a raise when you're working for uh wherever you're working for efficiency accountability most people that come to seminars are there because they weren't held accountable when they were growing up because i can imagine that most people think you're so tough so you know encouraging courageous but tough i don't want to be like that no no most people don't i want to be liked yeah well see you want to fit in i don't i'm the only speaker that you're ever going to hear that really with all his heart

doesn't give a sh if i leave here you liking me i did something wrong. What is your definition of a high-performance person being all that you can be every day 24/7 365 being all you can be. I asked the question a couple days ago how many of you you can raise your hands how many of you have kids don't raise your hand now how many of you would like to have your kids grow up just like your parents you know the answer don't you close to zero because they were shitty role models. Now I'm not going to ask the second question how many of you would like your kids to go up and be like you but being a high-performance person is a full-time job. I'm like this when I wake up in the morning to brush my teeth I'm like this when I brush my teeth before I go to sleep I'm like this 24/7 365 and I've been like this for the better part of 50 years. I'm always like this I'm always pushing the edge of the

envelope i did know steve jobs i do know elon musk i do know warren buffett and they're all ball busters. Success leaves clues kids i just named the greatest names in business in the last 150 years and they all have one thing in common they're ball busters they're hard as sales. Where does that leave you uh and the best advice i've ever given to anybody is just do it uh we take too much time procrastinating fear is false expectations appearing real we're worried about what other people think we're trying to fit in and i go through a whole litany of stuff why you are where you are because you just didn't do it you didn't want to make a mistake you got a mortgage you got a two ex-wives you got a 15-year-old daughter who's uh pregnant i can your your dad's got alzheimer's your mother's got emphysema spitting up blood i can go on and on and on and on.

but the bottom line is, if you had 15 years ago, you had just done it 10 years ago, you just done it five years ago, if you just done it six months ago, if you just done it, you probably wouldn't be in the position you're in now. So, I'm saying, no matter what your age is, it's still time to just go out and do it. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you

SACRIFICE = SUCCESS |  Best of Dan Pena Savage Advice Compilation

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6% of people worldwide are unhappy because they feel they don't have what they deserve, emphasizing the importance of earning, not just deserving.

High-performance individuals, like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, share a common trait of being willing to make significant sacrifices, such as working long hours and prioritizing success over personal matters.

Mega-wealthy individuals have also made sacrifices, like sleeping in their offices, to achieve success, highlighting the determination and hunger required for high performance.

A troubled youth turned his life around through military service, ultimately finding high performance and success.

He emphasizes the importance of passion, perseverance, and learning from failure in achieving dreams.

Despite a difficult upbringing in East L.

A, he was able to transform his life through discipline and determination, ultimately achieving his goals.

From Military Officer to Business Success: A Journey of Overcoming Challenges

A former army officer's life changed when a two-star general suggested he could get rich in the civilian world, prompting him to leave the military.

He quickly found success in business, making millions from federal contracts and oil and gas investments.

After being ousted by shareholders, he realized the traditional work model was outdated and aimed to make a difference by challenging the idea of a get-rich-quick scheme.

The Power of Taking Risks and Holding Yourself Accountable

Taking daily risks and stepping out of your comfort zone is key to success, according to the speaker.

Holding oneself accountable and changing one's reality is crucial for personal growth.

The younger generation is more successful in mentorship programs because they have less baggage and are more motivated to change.

The Power of Habits and Overcoming Failure

Having strong habits for 50 years has been key to success, with a willingness to push through whimpish feelings.

Embracing failure as a form of testing has been a crucial part of personal development.

The speaker criticizes a culture of avoiding sacrifice and the "snowflake" mentality, emphasizing the importance of emotional resilience and the ability to cope with adversity.

Handshake pressure, testosterone levels, and sperm counts have significantly decreased in men over the years.

A large percentage of the global population is unhappy, living hand to mouth, and paycheck to paycheck.

Successful business figures like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett are known for their tough and hardworking nature, highlighting the lack of willingness to make sacrifices in today's society.

High self-esteem is crucial for success, and it can be developed by surrounding oneself with people who already have it.

Many people worldwide are unhappy, but high-performing individuals share a common hunger for a better life.

Growth and success often require experiencing and overcoming pain, as opposed to just seeking love and being liked.

The Importance of Being a High-Performance Person

Being a high-performance person means giving your all 24/7, as exemplified by successful business leaders like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett.

Procrastination and fear of failure are the main obstacles to becoming high-performing, and the key advice is to just do it, regardless of circumstances.

Taking action and pushing the limits is crucial, regardless of one's age or situation.