If you have watched the hit TV show Billions, you know the character Dr. Wendy Rhoades. She is the brilliant in-house performance psychologist who helps ultra-wealthy hedge fund managers and cutthroat founders unlock extreme performance, navigate crises, and destroy their mental blocks.
But Wendy Rhoades isn’t just a fictional character trope. The Wall Street Journal recently compared the fictional Wendy to a very real person: Dr. Julie Gurner.
Dr. Gurner is one of the most sought-after executive performance coaches in the country. With a background in adult psychopathology and forensics—including a stint working in a Supermax prison—she now spends her days in the trenches with CEOs, billionaire founders, and elite operators. She helps the top 0.01% reach the next level psychologically.
In a recent interview, Dr. Gurner shared the exact traits, mindsets, and peak performance psychology strategies that separate the ultra-successful from everyone else. Here is how you can apply them to your own life.
1. The Defining Trait of the Top 0.01%: Audacity
When looking at the ultra-successful, one trait stands out above the rest: Audacity.
Audacity is the refusal to follow the “imaginary rules” that govern most people’s lives. Society teaches us certain boundaries: you cannot apply for that job unless you have exactly five years of experience, a small startup cannot pitch a major bank, or you do not belong in certain rooms because of your background.
According to Dr. Gurner, the top 0.01% operate with an almost complete unawareness of these artificial limits.
“They don’t follow the rules that everyone else seems to follow that are actually very artificial,” Gurner explains. “That audacity to go for these larger things… is really how they skip steps that everyone else is still trudging through. We’re all going on the crowded path, and they just find this little dirt road to get to outcomes we are eight years away from.”
How to Apply It: Adopt the disposition of “What if it goes right?” instead of “What if it goes wrong?” We chronically overestimate the true risk of failure. In reality, most failures are temporary and quickly forgotten by the public. Take the side path. Shoot the uncomfortably large shot.
2. The Repetitive Reflex: Stop Trying to Fix Your Weaknesses
There is a common misconception (the halo effect) that high performers are exceptional at everything. In reality, they are usually only great at one or two things—but they lean into those strengths relentlessly.
Dr. Gurner points to Elon Musk as a public example. Musk is a visionary company builder and resource gatherer, but he famously relies on operators like Gwynne Shotwell at SpaceX to handle the granular day-to-day operations, NASA contracts, and internal management.
“If you start as above-average on something and put force behind it, the separation between you and everyone else is dramatic,” Gurner notes. “But if you focus all your time on the things you are below average at, maybe you’ll bring them up to average. That’s not where you get escape velocity.”
How to Apply It: Identify your unique, outlier strengths. Double down on them. Stop judging yourself for the things you are bad at, and either delegate them, outsource them, or partner with someone who thrives in those areas (the “spreadsheet person”).
3. Stop Suppressing Negative Emotion: Use It as Fuel
The modern wellness world is currently obsessed with stoicism—the idea that you should remain perfectly tempered, suppress extreme emotions, and remain unaffected by the world.
Dr. Gurner pushes back hard against this, arguing that suppressing intense emotion is a massive waste of energy.
“If you have anger or rage, why would you suppress that?” she asks. “You are killing a source of energy that you could channel into something absolutely phenomenal. There are so many wonderful companies and careers built on spite, anger, and ‘I’m going to show you’ energy.”
Humans are meant to experience a full spectrum of emotions. If you have been wronged, you can choose to let that anger destroy you, or you can use it to work 80-hour weeks, build an empire, and make your life phenomenal.
How to Apply It: Do not let negative emotions turn you into a toxic person to those around you, but absolutely use the internal fire of a perceived slight or past failure to fuel your daily actions.
4. Be Quirky, Not Humble
If you want to reach the highest levels of success, “be humble” is often terrible advice.
Humility is frequently confused with modesty or self-deprecation. If you constantly devalue your contributions, the people who desperately need your specific skills will never find you. Knowing what you are great at, and proudly sharing it with the world, does not make you arrogant—it makes you useful.
Furthermore, do not sand down your edges to fit into a corporate mold.
“Everyone is pushing toward conformity, and it is the wrong path,” Gurner says. “If you push to fit in with everyone else, and then you’re mad that your outcomes aren’t different, there’s a reason for that. We remember people because of their quirks.”
How to Apply It: Own what you are great at loudly. Lean into your strange hobbies and unique personality traits. The friction of your “weirdness” is exactly what makes you memorable and separates you from the conformist pack.
5. Reframe Obstacles as Challenges
At the end of the day, Dr. Gurner says her main job as a psychologist is simply to help high-achievers get out of their own way. We all know what the optimal decisions in our lives are, but we invent excuses and barriers to avoid doing the hard work.
The simplest, most scalable tool to fix this is reframing.
“How you frame everything is how you approach it,” Gurner explains. “When you see an obstacle or a problem, reframe it into a challenge. Think, ‘How could I productively think about this that is equally true?’ We get so tunneled in that we don’t see other ways of thinking about the same challenge that could get us amped up to tackle it.”
The Bottom Line: Don’t Ignore the Haunting Agitation
Many people walk around with “haunting agitation”—a nagging voice whispering that they could be doing more, living bigger, and fulfilling a dream they abandoned long ago.
Do not let that whisper become a scream of regret later in life.
The difference between those who achieve outlier success and those who don’t is simply a willingness to make sacrifices. Map out the life you want, figure out exactly what it costs (both financially and in terms of effort), and have the audacity to go get it.
Checkout this incredible interview with Dr Julie Gurner
