https://youtu.be/kB8xIoEzlsI
Welcome back to the Redefining High Performance Podcast. My name is Ty Bennett. I’m excited to be with you for this quick episode today. Every week, coming back to you with these quick episodes of inspiration and education. I’m sharing some of the insights from our national research study on a high-performance titled Redefining High Performance. If you haven’t had a chance to download the white paper from that, you can find it at my website at tybennett.com.
Completely free, you can jump into the research, but every week, I come back and I share some of the insights from that research. And today is going to be the third in a series around three specific mindsets.
You see, high performance is not just about what people do. It’s about how they think while they do it. Right? The mindset matters. The best performers in every field don’t simply work harder or move faster. They operate from a set of mindsets that shape their actions, relationships, and ultimately their results. So, if you haven’t listened to it, the two previous episodes were on relaxed intensity and confident curiosity. I would recommend that you go back and show that, because our research shows that the highest performers have these 3 mental full disciplines. And those disciplines allow them to sustain excellence under pressure.
So, like I said, relaxed intensity is the first. Confident curiosity is the second. And the third is empathic drive. We’re going to talk about empathic drive today. These are not just attitudes, they are a practiced way of being. And together, these 3 mindsets work in harmony. They support each other, they build on each other. They become points of a triangle, if you will, and sides of a flywheel that they start to build some momentum in terms of how you show up and how you perform.
So today, I want to share with you this idea, this mindset of empathic drive. Now, with each of these mindsets.
There’s a balance that we’re trying to create. There’s a sweet spot right in the middle of it. Right? When you think about relaxed intensity. You’re… you’re combining presence under pressure, you’re combining urgency with calm. Those… might sound a little bit counterintuitive, but if you can balance those two it creates a really incredible mentality and approach when it comes to performance. With confident curiosity, again, there’s this balance. There’s this dichotomy between being confident, being sure and being curious, asking questions, wanting to learn, wanting to grow. And if we can maintain that balance where we don’t have it all figured out, but we do have enough figured out to take action. But we can still remain curious, keep learning, keep growing, keep progressing, then we can continue to sustain performance.
And today, we’re going to talk about empathic drive, which also had this balance. Because drive is powerful. But by itself, it can become selfish. Right? I mean, think about it. Sometimes our drive pushes us a little bit too far. Empathy softens drive. without weakening it. That’s the balance, right? How do we have the drive to really go after things? But also, the empathy to focus on what matters most. Which is people. Empathic drive is the ability to pursue results without losing the sight of relationships. It is ambition anchored in understanding. Right, if we can balance ambition and empathy, that becomes very powerful. It’s what happens when we leave both with heart and with force power. Right? We’ve got this this drive, this ability, but also this connection. That’s the mentality that the highest performers tend to have whether they’re in leadership, especially if they’re in leadership or in sales, right? To connect with other people. Hopefully, as a parent, as a coworker, as a team member, as a family member.
The sympathetic drive is extremely important. Empathy doesn’t mean that you are lowering standards. It means that you’re elevating connection. I’m gonna say that again, because I think this is so crucial. For those who are kind of the Type A personality, those that have a lot of drive, but empathy maybe doesn’t come as natural. Empathy is not weak, it’s not lowering standards. We’re elevating connection. And connection matters, right? It’s not softness, it’s strategic strength. The best leaders push for excellence because they care about people. They’re not trying to create excellence in spite of people.
This mindset transforms performance into partnership. Now, some of you might know that I wrote a book called Partnership is the New Leadership, and I truly believe that leaders who partner with their people get the most out of them.
It creates loyalty, creates trust, it creates engagement, and not just through charisma, but through care. When your people know that you truly care about them they will show up and give their absolute best. When people feel seen and valued, they do not just comply, they actually commit. Right? And compliance will never take us where commitment could go.
If you’ve ever read the book Mindset by psychologist Carol Dweck, her research on growth mindset shows that people.
thrive in environments where they are encouraged to learn, take risks and grow. And they’re not punished for imperfection.
When leaders embody empathic drive, they create that kind of environment. People feel safe to experiment, to share ideas, and to recover from mistakes because they know that their worth is not just tied to one specific outcome.
That feeling of safety is what Google’s project Aristotle identified as the single greatest predictor of team performance.
Say that again. The single greatest predictor of team performance according to a major research study is psychological safety. It’s the invisible fuel that allows people to contribute their whole selves without fear of judgment.
Now, if you go back to our research study, our research found that when we looked at high performance and we ask people across every industry of working America, what was the number one barrier to high performance? It was the fear of failure. That’s what’s holding you back. Fear shuts down learning, innovation, risk-taking. Which are actually the very behaviors upon which high performance really depends. Right, we’ve talked a lot about some of those behaviors in past episodes, and if you go back, you can read some of those. Empathic drive, this is the antidote. It replaces fear with trust. criticism with curiosity and isolation with connection. Empathic drive. It really requires presence. I think that’s the key. It means looking beyond metrics to understand motivations, right? To connect with people, it means recognizing that people give their best not when they’re pressured , but when they’re believed it.
I want you to think about your team. How do you show up for them? Because when you combine empathy and drive, something remarkable happens. Goals become shared, accountability becomes mutual. And progress becomes personal.
Empathic drive is what turns individual success into collective impact. And so, the mantra for empathic drive is to push for results, but to never forget who you are pushing with.
These 3 mindsets, if they’re practiced together, if they’re developed, are truly transformational. Relaxed intensity, confident curiosity, and empathic drive. Work to develop each of those. And as you do, you’re gonna see your performance grow, your connection grow, your abilities grow, and overall, the results that you’re going to have are gonna be extraordinary.
Thank you again for joining for this quick episode. I hope this is helpful. I hope that you’ll give some real thought to empathic drive, how you show up, how you think about your pursuit of goals and your pursuit of connection and the balance between those two.
I appreciate you listening. Please subscribe, rate, and review, and I will be back again next week.