John Eliot (b.1971) is an American psychologist and academic who teaches organizational and performance psychology at Texas A&M University. He has previously taught at the University of Virginia, Rice University, SMU’s Cox School of Business, and Stanford University.
Eliot’s works include Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance (2004) and Overachievement: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More (2006.) With basketball official Kevin Pritchard, Eliot authored Help the Helper: Building a Culture of Extreme Teamwork (2012.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Eliot
Anyone who strays too far from the majority view or the conventional wisdom is bound to be labeled “arrogant,” “a maverick,” “a Wildman,” “weird,” or even “crazy”.
—John Eliot
Topics: Wisdom, Overachievement, Achievement, New
No one else’s roadmap to success will get you there.
—John Eliot
Topics: Achievement, Overachievement, New, Success
All the great performers I have worked with are fueled by a personal dream.
—John Eliot
Topics: Work, Overachievement, New, Achievement, Great, Dream, Persona
The top players in every field think differently when all the marbles are on the line. Great performers focus on what they are doing, and nothing else…They let it happen, let it go. They couldn’t care less about the results.
—John Eliot
Topics: Doing, Overachievement, Achievement, Think, Great, Rent, New, Results, Focus
Confidence is a resolute state of mind by which you believe nothing is impossible.
—John Eliot
Topics: Confidence, New, Achievement, Overachievement, Mind, Believe
Bill Russell is one of the great names in basketball, an all-American… and the only athlete to ever win an NCAA Championship, an Olympic Gold Medal, and a professional championship all in the same year—1956…But Bill Russell had this one problem: He threw up before every game.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Achievement, Overachievement, Win, Great, Gold
Overachievement is aimed at people who want to maximize their potential. And to do that, I insist you throw caution to the wind, ignore the pleas of parents, coaches, spouses, and bosses to be “realistic”. Realistic people do not accomplish extraordinary things because the odds against success stymie them. The best performers ignore the odds. I will show you that instead of limiting themselves to what’s probable, the best will pursue the heart-pounding, exciting, really big, difference-making dreams—so long as catching them might be possible.
—John Eliot
Topics: Parents, Dreams, New, Best, Win, Rent, Caution, Achieve, Overachievement, People, Achievement, Potential, Dream, Success, Heart
Elevated levels of confidence are omnipresent among history’s greatest overachievers. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most famous men in the world even before he signed the Declaration of Independence once lamented about humility, “I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue”.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Achievement, Great, Achieve, Success, Humility, Overachievement, Independence, Confidence, Virtue, Freedom, History
Stress is the high-level performers PowerBar.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Achievement, Stress, Overachievement, Power
I have discovered that I cannot enhance anybody’s performance without getting them not only to live with the butterflies that come with high-pressure jobs but to embrace that kind of physical response, enjoy it, get into it. That’s the first real ticket to being a performer who thinks exceptionally.
—John Eliot
Topics: Kind, Joy, Lies, Discover, Body, Achievement, New, Live, Think, Jobs, Overachievement
If you really want to find out what you’re capable of, you cannot put limits on yourself, and you definitely cannot be cautious.
—John Eliot
Topics: Achievement, Overachievement, New
Like squirrels, the best in every business do what they have learned to do without questioning their abilities – they flat out trust their skills, which is why we call this high-performance state of mind the “Trusting Mindset”.
—John Eliot
Topics: Best, New, Overachievement, Achievement, Learn, Mind, Trust, Sin, Business
Overachievers don’t think reasonably, sensibly, or rationally.
—John Eliot
Topics: Reason, Achievement, Think, New, Overachievement, Achieve
We must not sit down and wait for miracles. Up and be going.
—John Eliot
Topics: Action
We must not sit still and look for miracles; up and doing, and the Lord will be with thee. Prayer and pains, through faith in Christ Jesus, will do anything.
—John Eliot
Topics: Action
The best players in any high-stakes field – business, entertainment, law, surgery, as well as sport – recognize that pressure occurs at the moments when meaningful accomplishment is possible. In fact, that is the reason why performers perform: for the opportunity to tackle challenges head on, to do something significant, to demonstrate what their hard work and talent can produce.
—John Eliot
Topics: Sin, Best, Reason, Act, Business, Accomplishment, Challenges, Talent, Overachievement, Achievement, New, Work
If you really want to break from the pack, you have to risk being perceived to be as eccentric as these people. You have to think exception-ally—a LOT!
—John Eliot
Topics: People, New, Achievement, Risk, Think, Overachievement
To be a top performer you have to be passionately committed to what you’re doing and insanely confident about your ability to pull it off.
—John Eliot
Topics: Doing, New, Overachievement, Passion, Achievement
Great performers are, by definition, abnormal; they strive throughout their entire careers to separate themselves from the pack.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Great, Career, Achievement, Overachievement
Confidence is not a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.
—John Eliot
Topics: Overachievement, Success, Work, New, Think, Thinking, Achievement, Confidence
Stick with your own perception of yourself—living in your own world—and letting your reality, not the reality presented by other people or particular situations, control your performance.
—John Eliot
Topics: People, Achievement, New, Control, Overachievement, Perception
Genuine confidence is a way of thinking about yourself and your abilities. Confidence is your perception of your own potential; it’s a kind of long-term thinking that powers you through the obstacles and tough times, helping you solve problems and putting you in the way of success. Your confidence is quite a separate matter from your social skills.
—John Eliot
Topics: Kind, Potential, Confidence, Success, Achievement, New, Power, Thinking, Perception, Think, Overachievement
Unlikely accomplishments are borne out of single-minded purposefulness. Future superstars don’t get there by keeping part of their heart in reserve.
—John Eliot
Topics: Overachievement, New, Sin, Heart, Purpose, Future, Accomplishment, Mind, Achievement
Arrogant S.O.B.s run the world. A performer can never have too much self-confidence. The best in every field are likely to strike most people as irrationally confident, but that’s how they got to the top.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Overachievement, Confidence, People, Best, Achievement
Great performers require a measure of confidence that would strike many as absurd, unfounded, and downright irrational. They believe in themselves utterly, without question, even when everyone else is questioning how good (or sane) they are.
—John Eliot
Topics: Overachievement, Achievement, Confidence, Great, New, Believe, Good
Superstars think like superstars long before the fans or the press anoint them.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Overachievement, Think, Achievement
What turns ordinary people into overachievers is the way they use their minds when they are called on to perform.
—John Eliot
Topics: Overachievement, People, New, Achieve, Mind, Achievement
High achievers dwell on what they do well and spend very little time evaluating themselves and their performances.
—John Eliot
Topics: Achievement, Achieve, New, Overachievement
Great performers welcome pressure.
—John Eliot
Topics: Great, Achievement, Overachievement, New
Thinking is a habit, and like any other habit, it can be changed; it just takes effort and repetition.
—John Eliot
Topics: Overachievement, New, Thinking, Effort, Think, Achievement, Habit, Change
History, though, shows us that the people who end up changing the world—the great political, scientific, social, technological, artistic, even sports revolutionaries—are always nuts, until they’re right, and then they’re geniuses.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Great, Genius, Achievement, History, People, Overachievement
We tend to view confidence as a product of accomplishment rather than part of the process that leads there. But supremely confident people were confident long before they achieved anything.
—John Eliot
Topics: Accomplishment, People, Achievement, Overachievement, New, Achieve, Confidence
Superstars perform so naturally and so instinctively that they seem to be able to enter a pressure-packed situation that would terrify or freeze most people as if nothing matters. They let it happen, let it go. They couldn’t care less about the results.
—John Eliot
Topics: Overachievement, Achievement, People, New, Results
Great performers in all fields seem immune to what outsiders think about them. Their sense of themselves never depends on the feedback—positive or negative—they get from the environment.
—John Eliot
Topics: Achievement, Overachievement, Think, New, Great
The physical symptoms of fight or flight are what the human body has learned over thousands of years to operate efficiently and at the highest level…anxiety is a cognitive interpretation of that physical response.
—John Eliot
Topics: New, Learn, Overachievement, Achievement, Light, Body, Anxiety
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Walter Raleigh English Explorer, Courtier
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford English Poet, Courtier
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury British Statesman
David Whyte Anglo-Irish Poet
Al Alvarez English Critic, Poet, Novelist
John Aikin British Educator
Philip Pullman English Children’s Author, Dramatist
Roger Bannister British Athlete, Neurologist
Terence Conran British Designer, Entrepreneur
Anthony Hopkins Welsh-American Actor