All the great performers I have worked with are fueled by a personal dream.

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.

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."

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.

All the great performers I have worked with are fueled by a personal dream.

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.

Unlikely accomplishments are borne out of single-minded purposefulness. Future superstars don't get there by keeping part of their heart in reserve.