Welcome to Week 21 of the High Performance Playbook. We now have almost 5,000 high performance community members, so thank you for continuing to share with friends!

If you’re new to the HPP, these are 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 sound interesting, the High Performance Playbook is for you.

If you enjoy the content and get some value from it, please share this link with a few friends and help me spread the word! There’s no better compliment than a referral.

Ready? Start your engines… Let’s GO:

Mindset & Psychology

Autonomy Only Works With Accountability

The goal isn’t to be managed.

It’s to manage yourself.

The best leaders (the ones who actually build something that lasts) operate with full autonomy and take full ownership of their outcomes.

They don’t wait for someone to check in. They don’t need to be micromanaged. And they don’t point fingers when things fall short.

But here’s the truth most people miss:

Autonomy doesn’t work without accountability.

You can’t just “do your own thing” and hope it works out. You have to hold yourself to a standard. Or surround yourself with people who will.

That’s the culture I’ve aimed to build in my companies:

• Total freedom to operate

• Clear expectations on results

• A structure of accountability that keeps us honest (including myself)

No one’s breathing down your neck. But everyone’s watching the scoreboard.

If you want to level up your leadership, start by creating your own system of accountability. It’s the missing ingredient behind every high-performing team, and every high-performer.

Health & Fitness + Longevity

Muscle Is Longevity

Most people still think lifting is just about looking good.

But in reality, muscle is one of the most underrated biomarkers of long-term health, and one of the best predictors of how you’ll age.

We now know that strength training does far more than build size. It protects your metabolic health, extends your functional years, and literally keeps you alive longer.

Here’s what the science says muscle helps with:

• Better insulin sensitivity (fighting off pre-diabetes and metabolic disease)

• More mitochondrial density (better energy production and endurance)

• Greater bone density (reducing your risk of fractures as you age)

• Lower all-cause mortality (aka a longer life)

• Faster recovery (from illness, injury, or surgery)

And here’s the key:

The focus should be on building strength you can maintain into your 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond.

Make sure you’re doing at least 2–3 full-body strength training sessions a week (at a minimum). Focus on compound lifts. Prioritize good form. Progress slowly and consistently.

Below is my program that I stick to most of the year.

I aim for a 3-on-1-off split. This gives me a recovery day every 4th day. Here’s how my training split looks:

• Day 1: Chest & Shoulders (Chest focused)

• Day 2: Legs (Quad-focused)

• Day 3: Back & Arms (Back-focused)

• Day 4: Rest

• Day 5: Shoulders & Chest (Shoulder focused)

• Day 6: Legs (Hamstring-focused)

• Day 7: Arms & Back (Arm-focused)

• Day 8: Rest

There’s no one-size-fits-all for workout splits. Your lifestyle, work schedule, travel, and other factors will be at play.

I’ve tried dozens of different workout splits over the last 25 years and this one works the best for me.

For cardio, I like to do LISS cardio (low intensity, steady-state), such as rucking or walking on an incline. 30-45 min a few days a week is all it takes to stay lean.

ProTip (especially if you’re over 30): Drop the ego lifting and focus on longevity. You don’t need to lift super heavy to have great gains. Focus on form, slow movements, deep stretches and strong contractions, and most importantly: mind-muscle connection.

You can skip a lot of things in life…

But building muscle shouldn’t be one of them.

Personal Finance Tip of the Week

Audit Your Time Like You Audit Your Finances

You track your money. You budget. You invest. Right? But are you doing the same with your time?

Here’s the truth:

Most people are more intentional with their dollars than they are with their hours.

But as the saying goes… time is money. And often, it’s worth a lot more.

This week, try this:

• Track your time for 5–7 days (every hour counts)

• For each activity, ask: What would I pay someone to do this for me?

• Assign a “dollar-per-hour” value to your own time

• Then compare the time you spend with how you treat your money

Scrolling for an hour might cost you $100 of lost output.

Doing $15/hr tasks when your time is worth $150, or even $1,000 an hour? That’s a hidden tax on your potential.

Audit your time like your finances… and you’ll start building wealth in hours and dollars.

Business Playbook

A lot of founders obsess over revenue, ROAS, or EBITDA.

But those are lagging indicators.

They’re the outcome after the inputs were already completed.

What I care more about is team velocity.

How fast can we turn ideas into action?

Because if that flywheel slows down, it’s only a matter of time before the numbers follow.

So I started watching the unsexy stuff.

• How long does it take to launch a product?

• How long to test a new ad?

• How fast do we resolve a support ticket or handle a return?

In our e-commerce business, I studied things like unsubscribes, return reasons, and negative comments like they were gold.

If we were seeing friction at the edges, I knew the engine wasn’t running clean. Even if sales were still climbing.

The truth is, chaos scales just as fast as growth.

And if you’re not careful, you’ll wake up with a bigger business and a bigger mess.

Don’t get me wrong, I still care about revenue.

But what I watch is how fast we move. Speed reveals everything.

Stuff Worth Seeing

💳 Why the Debt Snowball Method Beats Pure Math

🧬 Study reveals this type of exercise lowers your biological age by 9 years

🤝 When Team Accountability Is Low: Four Hard Questions for Leaders

DOPAMINE HIT

Thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed this week’s newsletter, please share it with some friends! And thank you for reading!

🗓️ STAY TUNED:

In next week’s newsletter, I’ll be sharing the turning point that helped me scale beyond burnout… and why doing everything yourself might be the biggest bottleneck in your business.

I’ll break down how I shifted from control to delegation, and how that one decision created more freedom, stronger systems, and a team that actually grows without me. You won’t want to miss it… have a great weekend!

Here’s to your success,

Austin L. Wright

Join my inner circle - Follow me on X for daily business breakdowns, lifestyle hacks, and a behind-the-scenes look at what my team and I are building.

Follow me on IG to see how I’m living the blueprint. I practice what I preach.

P.S.

• If you’ve ever considered hiring a coach to help you level up your fitness, your finances, or your business, I’ve opened about 3-5 spots for the next 90 days. Whether you’re just starting off or you’re scaling and want some guidance and a blueprint to take it to the next level, let’s chat and I’ll show you exactly how I’ve helped dozens of others get to the 1% club. Hit reply and let me know or click the link here to book a free 30-min consult and we’ll start the conversation.

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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.}