Welcome to Week 38 of the High Performance Playbook.

You’re now reading with almost 17,000 other high performers! Huge thank you for reading and continuing to share The High Performance Playbook with friends, family, and co-workers. Your support means the world.

If you’re new and just tuning in to the HPP, we cover the strategies and frameworks that separate the 1% from the .01%. We dive deep into: health & fitness + longevity, personal finance & investing, business growth hacks, and how to optimize all areas of your life.

If any of those topics sound interesting, the High Performance Playbook is for you.

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Ready? Start your engines… Let’s GO:

Where to Invest $100,000 According to Experts

Investors face a dilemma. Headlines everywhere say tariffs and AI hype are distorting public markets.

Now, the S&P is trading at over 30x earnings—a level historically linked to crashes.

And the Fed is lowering rates, potentially adding fuel to the fire.

Bloomberg asked where experts would personally invest $100,000 for their September edition. One surprising answer? Art.

It’s what billionaires like Bezos, Gates, and the Rockefellers have used to diversify for decades.

Why?

• Contemporary art prices have appreciated 11.2% annually on average

• …And with one of the lowest correlations to stocks of any major asset class (Masterworks data, 1995-2024).

• Ultra-high net worth collectors (>$50M) allocated 25% of their portfolios to art on average. (UBS, 2024)

Thanks to the world’s premiere art investing platform, now anyone can access works by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso—without needing millions. Want in? Shares in new offerings can sell quickly but…

My subscribers skip their waitlist*

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.}

Mindset & Psychology

The Feedback Advantage: How Top Performers Use & Filter Feedback

Most professionals say they value feedback, but there’s a widening gap between appreciation and application. 

The highest performers don’t wait for feedback or hope it happens organically. 

They engineer it directly into their process, treating every loop of input as fuel for acceleration.

Individuals who actively solicit, structure, and integrate feedback outperform peers who simply “stay open to it.” The difference isn’t attitude. It’s architecture. 

Designed feedback systems create a consistent cycle of awareness, adjustment, and reinforcement. Instead of reacting to feedback occasionally, you’re shaping performance continuously.

The first step is narrowing your focus. Identify one performance domain where clarity matters most: communication, leadership, decision-making, or results. 

Vague improvement goals scatter your attention. A single target creates momentum.

Then build a simple but powerful 3-step feedback loop:

• Step #1: Request feedback deliberately
  Don’t ask, “How am I doing?” Ask for something measurable: “What’s one thing I could do 10 percent better next week?” Specificity produces actionable data.

• Step #2: Record and review
  Capture all feedback in writing; one place, one system. Review it weekly. Look for patterns, contradictions, and repeated blind spots. The goal isn’t perfection. It’s clarity.

• Step #3: Report back
  Tell the person what you applied and what changed. This closes the loop, reinforces accountability, and signals that their input matters. It also models the kind of growth culture most organizations say they want but rarely practice.

Over time, feedback stops being episodic and becomes operational. It turns into a system that is quiet, compounding, and reliable. You adapt faster. You identify blind spots earlier. Improvement becomes measurable instead of accidental.

This is the feedback advantage. 

It shifts your mindset from defensive to developmental. Feedback stops feeling like judgment and becomes a precision instrument for mastery. 

When you design the system, you control the pace. And when you control the pace, you can accelerate.

🤯 Biggest Story of the Week (Mindset & Psychology)

Health & Fitness + Longevity

Cold Exposure: The Small Stress That Builds Big Resilience

A growing body of research is highlighting the surprising benefits of brief, controlled cold exposure. 

Studies published in Frontiers in Physiology and the International Journal of Circumpolar Health show that practices like cold showers, ice plunges, or outdoor workouts in cool conditions can trigger a cascade of physiological adaptations, from mitochondrial efficiency and inflammation control to dopamine regulation and improved mental clarity.

What’s the takeaway? 

It’s not about enduring extreme discomfort; it’s about consistency. 

Regular exposure, even in short bursts, teaches your body and mind how to manage stress more effectively. Experts suggest starting with two to four sessions per week, beginning with just 30–90 seconds of cold. Over time, this small, controlled stressor enhances your body’s ability to regulate stress hormones, recover from exertion, and sleep more soundly.

Here’s how to implement it safely:

• Start warm. Begin your shower as usual, allowing your body to acclimate, then finish with a cold rinse. This helps prevent shock and lets you build tolerance gradually.

• Breathe deliberately. Maintain steady, controlled breathing. Avoid gasping or holding your breath. Conscious breathing helps your nervous system remain composed, even as the cold stimulates it.

• Increase duration gradually. As your body adapts, extend your time under cold water or progressively explore colder environments. The goal is steady progression, not extreme exposure.

Beyond physical benefits, cold exposure is a powerful tool for mental resilience. It trains your nervous system to stay calm under stress, enhances focus, and reinforces a mindset of deliberate discomfort, knowing you can tolerate challenges you previously thought difficult.

Think of it as stress calibration rather than cold tolerance. Just as strength training teaches muscles to adapt and grow, short, controlled cold exposure teaches your body and mind to respond to stress with composure and control. 

Over weeks and months, these small sessions accumulate into meaningful physiological and psychological gains, leaving you better prepared for the inevitable pressures of daily life.

The research is clear: consistency over intensity, deliberate practice, and gradual adaptation can transform a simple cold rinse into a tool for resilience, recovery, and peak performance.

🏋️‍♂️ Biggest Story of The Week (Health & Fitness)

Personal Finance Tip of the Week

Behavioral Compounding: How Consistency Outperforms Genius

A new Morningstar analysis confirms what disciplined investors have long suspected: over the long run, consistency beats timing the market.

Another way it’s said commonly is, “Time IN the market beats TIMING the market.”

Across nearly every 20-year period measured, investors who automated contributions and rebalanced annually captured 95% of total market gains, while those attempting to time the market captured less than 70%. 

Clearly, the real edge comes from behavioral compounding with a steadfast process, not predictive brilliance.

Behavioral compounding works because small, repeated actions accumulate over time. Regularly contributing to your portfolio, sticking to predetermined rebalancing schedules, and ignoring short-term market noise ensure you participate in growth without letting emotions sabotage results. 

This approach doesn’t require perfect foresight, just disciplined adherence to a plan.

To design your own behavioral compounding system, start by automating contributions, ideally on the same day each month. Pre-commit to rebalancing dates and avoid reacting to headlines or market swings.

Track decisions, not short-term outcomes, and measure adherence to your process over performance.

The benefits extend beyond returns. When your system runs itself, emotional impulses like fear, greed, and FOMO are removed from your decision-making. You build resilience against market volatility, reduce stress, and cultivate confidence in your financial future.

Ultimately, behavioral compounding is about humility and patience. It recognizes that consistent, well-structured actions create results far beyond what sporadic brilliance or clever timing can achieve. 

In investing, as in life, stability of process often outperforms fleeting genius. 

By leaning into routine, automation, and disciplined execution, investors can harness compounding not just in their portfolios but in their habits and decision-making, turning consistency into an unstoppable advantage.

The lesson is simple: don’t chase the market; trust the system you can control. 

Over decades, the cumulative power of repeated, measured actions will outpace even the most brilliant but inconsistent moves.

💰 Biggest Story of the Week (Personal Finance)

Business Playbook

Execution Rhythm: The Hidden Discipline Behind Momentum

Strategy alone doesn’t create results. 

Many high-growth companies are learning that success comes from embedding rhythm into execution: consistent cycles of planning, action, and review that turn strategy into measurable momentum. 

Here are a few tips to build an execution rhythm:

• Start with clarity. Begin by setting a strategic cadence: define annual and quarterly priorities that anchor your team’s focus. 

• Next, layer in a tactical cadence with weekly checkpoints to track progress, address roadblocks, and adjust actions in real time. 

• Finally, protect a review cadence with monthly reflections that evaluate outcomes, capture lessons, and refine the next cycle.

The power of rhythm is that it turns abstract plans into tangible habits. 

Teams moving in consistent beats internalize accountability, making follow-through a cultural expectation rather than a forced task. Progress becomes measurable, adjustments timely, and momentum self-reinforcing.

Execution rhythm also reduces reliance on heroic effort. When action flows predictably from strategy to task to review, individuals understand their roles and timing, minimizing chaos and misalignment. 

Over time, this consistency compounds: small wins stack, inefficiencies shrink, and strategic intent translates into lasting results.

Beyond operational benefits, rhythm strengthens decision-making. Teams no longer react chaotically to every challenge; they act within established cycles that allow reflection and calibration. 

Momentum becomes a function of process, not chance.

In today’s fast-moving business environment, strategy without cadence is wasted energy. Companies that establish disciplined execution rhythms outperform peers not necessarily because they have superior ideas, but because they translate those ideas into reliable, repeatable progress. 

Momentum isn’t accidental. It’s engineered through timing, reflection, and iteration. Leaders who prioritize rhythm create teams that move together, measure what matters, and sustain high performance over time.

🤖 Biggest Story of the Week (Business)

DOPAMINE HIT

Thanks for reading!

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🗓️ STAY TUNED:

Next week, we’ll look at leveraging the 3-day learning cycle to help you learn and remember more.

… Stay tuned. You won’t want to miss it!

Here’s to your success,

Austin L. Wright

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_{Disclaimer: The ideas shared in this newsletter are those of the author, and this is in no way intended to be medical, legal, or financial advice. Always do your own research and consult with licensed professionals.}