Humor is a powerful Attribute, one that is easy to overlook. When you are in a difficult situation, finding humor can help calm, comfort, empower, and even encourage you and others around you. Because of this, humor can is also a key factor in your own optimal performance - as well as an essential element of high-performing teams. If you want to know how to optimize your performance with humor, read on.

What's the difference between skills and Attributes? Think of a time when you’ve been in a challenging, stressful, or uncertain situation. How did you get through it? It was most likely by leaning on your Attributes, not your skills. Understanding the difference between the two is a critical first step in optimizing your performance in challenging times.

There is a big difference between being fearless and being courageous. It takes more strength to be courageous, but you get far better rewards. Our brains give us encouraging benefits when we decide to confront our uncertainties and anxieties that make up fear. You can learn to overcome fear, and with practice, you can become courageous to better perform in a variety of fearful situations.

Every year, about a thousand young men enroll in the Navy’s Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training program. Most of them, about seventy-five percent in the best years, fail or drop out, and usually during the fifth week. Why then? Because the fifth week is the infamous Hell Week, and it’s called that for good reason.

Optimal performance is the ability to do the best you can in any environment. Sometimes the best is your peak, and sometimes your best is just surviving. But always underlying that performance are those inherent attributes. The primary question, then, is how much of each attribute do you have? You, your team, even your organization? Which ones do you have but don’t know about yet? And which ones are you looking to develop?