Top Performers Rarely Call in Sick—Here’s the Data That Proves Why

Welcome to Mission Elite’s Official Newsletter

^{Mission Elite is an organization that has impacted World Champions and National Championship-producing teams to leading executives and groundbreaking companies. The author of this newsletter and CEO of Mission Elite, Raheel Manji, specialized in Executive Leadership at Harvard and High Performing Teams through Stanford, where he finished in the top 3 of his class. He is trained in Psychology of Performance and is a former 4X professional title holder, ITA National Summer Champion, and NCAA Sweet 16 coach.}

The Hidden Cost of Canceling

You should rarely cancel plans or miss days. You need to understand the danger of becoming someone who does.

In this article, I’ll explain to you the psychology, data, and observational evidence behind why. I’ll also demonstrate how adopting this principle personally and within your organization can be the greatest performance booster.

The Absenteeism Effect

Let’s start with some data.

The number of missed days is closely correlated with engagement. This creates a revolving door effect: individuals less committed to personal development are more likely to engage in absenteeism, and those who engage in absenteeism are more likely to become less committed.

Research shows that employees with lower absenteeism rates often exhibit higher productivity and contribute more significantly to organizational success. Absenteeism costs companies an estimated $3,600 annually per hourly worker and $2,650 per salaried employee. Highly engaged and passionate employees tend to be 21% more productive and exhibit a 41% reduction in absenteeism compared to their peers. They also experience stronger connections through their work and as a result better overall health and wellness. Therefore, you can tell levels of engagement and passion in employees by their attendance and productivity.

Attendance as the Ultimate Performance Indicator

Steve Magness, coach of multiple Olympians and co-author of Peak Performance is known as a global performance leader for his integration of science and data. He tracked improvement rates of his college runners and compared it to a whole slew of factors to see if anything correlated. There was one that stood out over everything else. How many practices they showed up to. Those who missed the fewest days improved the most.

The Power of Showing Up

It takes a lot for me to believe in something, so naturally I had to do my own tests too. I did this through our performance sector at Mission Elite. We tracked each competitor's number of development days missed over the course of the year. This was regardless of the reason for the missed day. It became clear why some competitors were producing the way they were.

In our prospective teams, we found out that the two players who attended the most practices and missed the least days had some crazy stats. The top performer in most attended and least missed days jumped, if you know anything about tennis, 3 UTR points in a year and a half, and the second-highest performer in this category jumped 4 UTR points in 2 years. That is not only major but also fast progress in the tennis world.

The best part of running our own tests is that we knew that it’s not that these two performers didn’t get injured, sick, or have excuses—it’s that they showed up when others would have backed out.

The Champions Factor

Here are a couple more examples.

The tennis legend, Roger Federer, considered one of the greatest of all time, out of 1,749 matches in his career, only retired once mid-match. By contrast, the average competitive male tennis player retires once every 32 matches, while the average female player retires once every 37 matches.

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals in swimming, stated in interviews that for 5 or 6 years he swam without taking any days off, regardless of sickness or holidays. Meanwhile, the average competitive swimmer averages 30 to 50 days off each year.

Through the information we’ve provided, it becomes obvious why the greats are the greats and the average are the average.

Track Your Organization

As a leader of an organization, through data, it becomes really clear who to invest in over the long haul and how to tell. For this reason, every leader should be tracking each member's attendance rates and comparing it to their peers, creating strong incentives and goals to become the most dominant organization in attendance rate.

If you would like myself or Mission Elite to help you or your organization optimize performance, you can contact our team at [email protected].

How Reliability Builds Social and Financial Success

Now let’s look at the social cost. Those who frequently cancel plans outside of work—plans they committed to—tend to be more lonely and anxious. This makes sense when you break it down. Along with the social deprivation, canceling commitments diminishes trust and dependability. When you cancel plans, you are simultaneously canceling others' plans, plans they may have sacrificed other opportunities to make. Over time, people will stop inviting you to make plans or to their opportunities because they don’t want to waste their time or have their plans and opportunities be canceled or affected.

Additionally, the more one cancels plans or misses days, as a result of their now increased social suffering, they tend to be less financially successful. Research indicates a significant correlation between social capital and financial wealth.

The most successful people seem to take canceling plans or not showing up—even to their least important commitments—more personally. They don’t want others or themselves to think that’s who they are.

You don’t become successful in such a socially interactive world without this mindset. You get there by being unbelievably reliable, on good, bad, relaxing, busy, and all other kinds of days. To achieve the best positions in this world, you need to be highly connected and build all of the trust and reliability you possibly can.

The Hardcore Truth

When it comes to canceling plans or missing days, understand that almost all of the reasons people use to do so are invalid and are instead used to attend to their actual priorities. For example, if someone doesn’t show up to work because their best friend is in town, their best friend is more of a priority than their work.

Here is something fascinating. During my time in the NCAA, none of the Head Coaches I ever played for or worked under missed a single day. Not one. And trust me, they had a million reasons to. In fact, one of them even skipped his child’s birth to attend an early morning team practice. The practice wasn’t even an in-season practice—it was just a regular old day.

That’s when you realize that that’s what it takes to get the best positions in this world. It takes prioritizing that position over everything else. His willingness to put practice above everything else—even the birth of his child—is exactly how he became a Head Coach at one of the top programs in the NCAA. A dream job to many that requires sacrifices and a prioritization that many aren’t willing to make.

In my own life, Mission Elite has been my priority. I too have not missed a single day over the years. Like everyone else, I have reasons to miss days—but I don’t. My experience at Mission Elite, in the NCAA, and being around the most successful leaders I have has made it so clear. There really is never a valid excuse to miss something. There are just priorities.

It sounds hardcore, but it’s the truth. Great development requires hardcore sacrifice. But the same rule applies to building great social networks, health, families, and relationships. So pick your priorities and don’t miss a day.

Commitment Speaks Loud

Again, you can learn a lot about what people care about and prioritize through cancellations and missed days. This is why the saying, “action speaks louder than words,” always holds true. As a leader, when a team member misses work to attend a wedding, it tells that leader that special events are more of a priority than their work. As a romantic partner, if your partner cancels date night to watch the big football game, it tells them that the football game is the priority. We have to accept this and invest in those who will prioritize what we want prioritized.

It’s kind of funny hearing some excuses people use to get out of things when you realize there really are no valid excuses. You find out those same people are incredibly resilient and unstoppable when it comes to the things they genuinely care about.

But let me make clear that I am not validating those who cancel plans or miss days for their priorities. I believe what should be done—and what the highly successful do—is not commit to that which they may have to uncommit to. This allows them to prioritize their priorities without becoming a plan canceler or day misser.

The Practice of Commitment

Although it may not be obvious, canceling plans or not showing up to commitments is no different than quitting.

What is quitting? It’s not doing something you committed to. That’s what not showing up to work, training, or a plan is.

The more times you fail to show up to your commitment—no matter how unimportant it may seem—you’re practicing quitting.

As a CEO or Head Coach, you do not want an environment of frequent quitters and have to do everything you can to discourage those from abusing reasons to miss days.

Because when you are trying to overcome something difficult, which most people, teams, and organizations are, there will be great pressure to stop, quit, or not show up, and that is not something you want your members to have practice in or be too good at.

The elite and most successful members in these moments have too much practice doing the opposite and following through with their commitments. In the end, that’s a big part of why they come through and achieve hard things.

Why Conscientiousness Defines Your Success

Why is this true? Research shows that the greatest predictor of success after IQ is conscientiousness—a trait defined by diligence and reliability. Be incredibly wary of your no-shows, sick days, and canceled commitments. They directly impact your reliability and, as a result, your development in life.

Every commitment you fail to honor—even if it’s due to sickness or injury—unfortunately negatively impacts your reliability. When you do miss a day or a commitment, make sure it’s an extremely legitimate personal reason; otherwise, you are casually building a reputation of being unreliable, not just with others, but with yourself.

Even if no one else notices, you do. Over time, this erodes your self-trust. On the other hand, if you always meet your commitments, fulfilling them becomes tied to your self-identity. When something difficult comes your way, you won’t back out because coming through is who you are. It’s technically true from a psychological standpoint that people go to great lengths to uphold their self-identity. So how do you want to see and think about yourself?

Attendance isn’t just a metric—it’s a mindset. Whether in work, relationships, or personal growth, the most successful people are those who show up every day.

Don’t be someone who just shows up on the good days. Show up every day.

Final Thoughts

For more on high performance, mindset, and success, follow us on Instagram at Mission Elite Performance and Mission Elite Mentality.

For a deeper dive into the principles that fuel success, check out my book, 17 Principles of a Mission Elite, available on Amazon or through our website.

If you would like us to support you and help your team or leadership, visit www.missioneliteperformance.com or contact our administrative team at [email protected].

Sincerely,

Raheel Manji
CEO, Mission Elite