Dr. Julie Gurner: How to Reach Your Potential

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Discipline is a push; motivation is a pull.

  Executive coach Dr. Julie Gurner says relying on discipline is a poor primary strategy. Her high performers don't need pushing to work; their spouses are telling them to switch off at night and on weekends. Discipline is useful in three cases: restarting a lapsed routine, taking a frightening leap into something new, and getting through off days. Grit and happiness are correlated, so pushing through does feel good. But if a role feels like a daily slog for too long, that's often a sign you shouldn't be in it — it's when you see Olympians retire.

• 02

  You can't install drive, but you can release it.

  Gurner thinks internal hunger can't be taught — you have it or you don't. A leader's job is to learn each person's goals and drivers in one-on-ones and tie the work to them, rather than trying to create motivation. Shane's framing: we can't create drive, but we can get in its way. Startup equity works when it aligns company success with life-changing, generational money for a team. She hasn't seen her driven clients turn complacent. One family-business chairman in his mid-70s is as hungry as ever.

• 03

  Negative fuel works if you channel it.

  People work against things — poverty, an upbringing — as much as for them. A chip on the shoulder never fully gets disproved. The third-grade teacher who said you'd never amount to much still motivates you with $50 million in the bank. Mike Tyson said he trained out of fear of public humiliation, and that by the walk to the ring the fear faded and he felt like a god. Rage and resentment can burn your own house down, but channelled properly they're 'a force to be reckoned with.'

• 04

  Survivor, not victim — and start from today.

  When Gurner hears helplessness, she helps people rewrite the story around survivorship and the strength it took. She starts with who you are now, not your inner child, because revisiting powerlessness sets you up badly. With people who hesitate to take risks, she has them recount risks that paid off. People bury 20 compliments under one 'what did you do to your hair?' Her traffic example: some drivers rage and others relax with a podcast. If traffic itself made people nuts, it would make everyone nuts. Blaming your childhood hands your power to something outside you.

• 05

  Imaginary rules keep you small.

  Beyond useful rules like manners, we absorb unspoken ones about what we can earn, do or become. Growing up, Gurner thought a physician was the richest thing you could be. Ask people if they're the author of their lives and they'll say yes. Ask what they wanted to be, and most haven't done it or didn't think it was possible. Frustrated, they then tell stories about others: anyone earning a million must exploit people or have been born rich. Your social circle either reinforces these rules or helps you break them.

• 06

  Boundaries are freedom.

  They protect your highest and best use of time. Founders who keep their tentacles in product too long compromise on scale. Boundaries also protect a weekly date night that you actually hold to. Setting them makes few people happy, and others will test them. Think of your life as a stool: if your whole identity is the business, it's easy to kick out. Build several legs — relationship, sleep, nutrition, spirituality — and fix the nagging shoulder now, so it stops eating headspace. Some people overwork precisely because work is where they feel they're winning while home is falling apart.

• 07

  Outliers are quirky, make big bets, and trust they'll figure it out.

  Gurner's outliers are 'resolutely themselves.' They're often not the most popular kids in high school, which may push them to go further. They like risk and winning, and don't care how others think they operate. One client spent $8 million on a machine and bought several more, betting his company would catch up. She pushes back on the idea that they 'burn the boats.' They're confident that whatever happens they'll figure it out — there's always a dinghy.

• 08

  Hesitation erodes confidence; action stacks it.

  Watch a friend take chance after chance while you're still thinking about your idea, and each step widens the gap and erodes self-esteem. Eventually you rationalise why you didn't do it, and the idea goes 'to the place where dreams die.' Each leap that doesn't go wrong is a shot in the arm. If someone says 'you've changed,' take it as a compliment.