 The Danger of ExpectationHave you ever been on your morning commute to work and realize it’s just not going to be your day? You know the days. It starts before you ever even get in your car. You forgot to pack your lunch the night before, the pants you were going to wear are in the dirty clothes, and you can’t even find your keys. And, of course, you’re running late.
When you finally make it to the car, your gas light is on and two minutes into the drive your check engine light dings. As you turn off your street, a giant box truck turns right in front of you and manages to stay a perfect 5 mph under the speed limit through town where there’s no room to pass. Jumping onto the highway, at last free from staring at the rear door of the box truck, you finally start moving at a pace you deem acceptable. That is, of course, until you are boxed in by two semis going just fast enough to keep you locked into your position. When you make your way to the fast lane, you’re greeted by the dreaded 55 mph driver oblivious to the world of cars speeding by. The final leg of the drive puts you back in town with a series of traffic lights to navigate. And, you guessed it, every single one red. I mean, what are the chances? It’s just your luck. What if I told you this entire scenario, which we play out on different platforms daily, is all a result of expectations? More than that, our own selfish expectations? Well, they are. Why Should We Care? We aren’t owed a single green light and we’ve done nothing to deserve a clear fast lane. That’s just the story we’ve told ourselves. None of it was ours to begin with. We didn't earn it and we didn't buy it. Somewhere along the way, we decided the world owes us an easy path just because we showed up. As if others should be parting the sea because we’re here. That's the slight of entitlement. It's sneaky because it doesn’t feel like entitlement from the inside. For me, it usually feels like frustration or bad luck - “of course this would happen to me”. But when we strip it down, what's really happening is we’re expecting something we never had the right to in the first place. The green light. The promotion. The day going according to plan. We didn't earn any of it, we just expected it, and when it didn't show up, we got frustrated at a world that never promised it to us. Ultimately, it’s just our selfishness finding its way out. It's us deciding we’re the exception. The world is not against us, it was never for or against us. We’re the ones who decided it owed us something. The depth of this perspective is significant. Our happiness on that drive was never determined by the lights. It was determined by what we expected from them. Two people can sit at the exact same red light. One's fuming, replaying every slight of the morning. The other's grateful, appreciating the thirty seconds to breathe. Same light. Completely different expectations. Happiness, joy, contentment are reality minus what you expected reality to be. REAL TALK - Action Steps Knowing where the frustration comes from doesn't fix it by itself. Here's how you actually put it to work.
You don't own the outcome. You don't own much of anything, if you're honest about it. But you do own your expectations. Eliminate what you think you’re owed. Highlight what you’ve been given. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!
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 On the Flip SideIt’s been about a year since I made the declaration, a considerably shorter time frame than what has passed since I first had the thought. Admittedly, it took some time to say it out loud. Fear being the primary culprit, of course. It showed its little lying, conniving head in two predictable ways.
The first fear that surfaced was a fear of what people would think. This was a guest I had become unfamiliar with. In virtually every area of my life I had gotten proficient at detaching from the approval of others. But, for whatever the reason, this endeavor resurfaced many of those uneasy feelings of insecurity, judgment, and self-consciousness. Navigating them has been interesting, and just as challenging as I remember them being. I’m beyond this struggle now, but it was real while it lasted. The second is the fear of failing. I’m still in the process of navigating this guy and I’m not sure I ever want him to go completely away. When this undertaking began, I was confident in being able to complete it. As the months, and now year, have passed I’ve questioned that belief hundreds of times. But, in true delusional fashion, I’ve never really believed I was going to fail. The days highlight the failures and make me question the likelihood of success, but I’m still confident the final outcome will be exactly what I planned from the start. The declaration started as an interest: I want to do a backflip. Then, it became a curious idea: I think I can do a backflip. And finally, the confident assertion: I’m going to do a backflip. No, I don’t have any tumbling experience. No, I’m not athletic and have never done anything that resembles a flip. No, I don’t have a reason for needing to do a backflip. Yes, I’m too old to be learning this now. Yes, I realize I could hurt myself. Yes, I was completely clueless on what all this entailed. And, no, I have not completed a backflip … yet. But, yes, I will. Why Should We Care? Backflip aside, I’ve learned a lot. I hope you can see this has been about more than a successful backflip. It's about stretching myself, challenging what I think is possible, and attempting to do something where failure is not only a possibility but a likely outcome. One of the most important things I’ve learned throughout the process is my real view on failure. Not the resulting thoughts from it, but the actual feelings I experience in the midst of failure after failure. I've had to make a decision, over and over, that a bad rep isn't a final verdict, even when I’ve wanted it to be. It's just data. It tells me what to fix. The mental progression from treating failure as a defining moment to merely information is transformational. The fear of failure lost its grip. As a leader your people are watching how you fail, not just how you win. If you flinch from it, they will begin to question the process … as they should. The second thing I’ve gained clarity on is courage. It’s no longer an absence of fear. It's moving forward while the fear is still alive and well. Courage was never waiting for fear to leave. It was moving forward regardless of fear's position. The leaders worth following just go, fear riding shotgun most of the time. The third thing, and the one I didn't expect, is how much a real coach matters. Kind of a weird realization for a lifetime coach, but here I am. A coach’s ability to give real time feedback, correct the same thing over and over, and encourage the slightest progress is powerful. Finding a good one isn’t easy. Most people will edit their feedback. Most are unwilling to give the same correction five times in a row in an effort to make you feel good. The thing is, I don’t want to feel good. I want to do a backflip. A good coach does not lose track of the end goal. REAL TALK - Action Steps Here’s a few thoughts on applying some of my backflip learnings to your leadership journey.
Keep failing. Ignore fear. Find a coach. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!  Selfish, Not Self-Centered“I need you to look at me so I know you’re listening.”
My wife’s warning is usually delivered just as I’m completely consumed in another project, too engulfed to have even the slightest awareness of my surroundings. It’s a skill I developed when the kids were little. Typically I will have been the target of her last few sentences, right before she realized I was in another world. Once eye contact is made, she starts over, astutely assuming I had no idea what she has already said. It’s a cute little cat and mouse game we have going on: she thinks I’m never paying attention, I let her think she’s right; I start paying attention, she feels validated. The dance continues. The truth is, I’m always paying attention. It just may not be the topic she is currently addressing. As a recovering busy-body, I am constantly working on something. And, one of my superpowers is the ability to block out everything going on around me and focus on whatever it is that I’m working on. It’s usually a gift, although my wife doesn’t always see it that way. I do see the selfishness of my actions. I share it less as a badge of honor and more as an admission of guilt. The positive is that while it’s selfish, it’s not self-centered. There is a difference. Both will eventually destroy you I suppose, but if forced to choose, I’d rather be the busy body. Why Should We Care? Most leadership advice treats selfish like a dirty word. An emphasis is always placed on putting others first and serving your people. Which is very true, most of the time. But if you lead anything worthwhile, there are going to be stretches where selfish is exactly what the moment requires. Head-down, locked in, temporarily unavailable to everything except the problem in front of you. Excellence requires deep levels of focus at times. A leader in the middle of a tough decision is going to become consumed to an extent. He’s going to miss some things or come off distracted. He may need a second reminder before he actually hears you. It’s selfish, but it's understandable. Everybody on the team can tell it's in service of something real. You're not distracted because you don't care about them. You're distracted because you're trying to get something done that matters. That kind of selfishness costs you a little presence, but it doesn't cost you their trust. Self-centeredness is a different animal, and it's one that will wreck a team in a hurry. Self-centered isn't about being consumed by the work, it's about being consumed by how the work makes you look. They are constantly managing their image, seeking credit. Self-centered tries to dress up as a good leader while being something completely different underneath. Once people sense that everything you do points back to you, you don't just lose their trust in that moment, you lose it in every moment that came before it. They’re forced to wonder how much of it was ever real. A leader who understands the difference between selfishness and self-centeredness gives himself permission to be selfish when the work demands it, without ever confusing that with the right to make it all about him. Isn’t it crazy how two people could be doing the exact same thing, but be viewed completely differently? Your purpose always smells. REAL TALK - Action Steps Knowing the difference matters. Here's how to actually live it.
Pick your times to be selfish when your team needs you to be. Eliminate the times you’re self-centered, or you won’t have a team to lead. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here! 4 Levels of Confidence Good ‘ol Honest Abe may have been honest, but he wasn’t too lucky early in his professional career.
He failed in business. He lost his job. He ran for state legislature and lost there too. He started another business, which also failed, and it took him 17 years to pay off the debt he accrued in the process. As if that wasn’t enough, his fiancée died. Then he had a nervous breakdown. He ran for Congress and lost. Ran for Senate and lost. Ran for Vice President and lost. And, finally ran for Senate again … and lost again. Then he was elected President of the United States, held the country together through a civil war, and became one of the most respected presidents in the history of our country. Lincoln clearly had it in spades, but confidence isn’t something that oozed out of him like it did from other well-known presidents like Teddy Roosevelt or John F Kennedy. And, nothing about his previous results would lead others to think confidence was a trait Lincoln should even be gently holding. Public opinion would agree, of course. He was mocked, pushed aside, and underestimated for most of his life. It leads to an interesting question: where did the confidence to keep getting back up come from? It’s the type of steady, unwavering confidence we all aspire to have. Yet, it seems to be reserved for only the best of the best. But, it shouldn’t be. Why Should We Care? There are four levels of confidence, and where you build yours from determines whether it holds up when adversity comes calling. Level 1 — None. You don't have confidence. You either don't know what you're doing yet, or you're genuinely insecure in your ability. Everybody starts here at something. Level 2 — Results. Your confidence is based on the outcomes you get. This one's popular because it feels earned. You did the thing, you got the result, so you feel good. The problem is the order is backwards. You need confidence before you get the result, not after. So you're stuck needing the thing you don't have yet to go get the thing that would give it to you. It's a trap a lot of people live in their whole career. Notice it’s the second lowest level, yet is treated by most as the standard. Level 3 — Praise. Your confidence is based on someone else's words. A compliment, a like, a retweet, someone telling you that you're good. This one feels like a shortcut, but it puts your confidence in someone else's hands. You end up trying to appease people, including people whose opinion shouldn't carry that much weight, like those who aren't in your foxhole. Your confidence goes up and down based on whether somebody else decided to hand you a compliment today. That's dependency, not confidence. Level 4 — Conviction. Your confidence is drawn from your personal values and from trusting your ability to handle whatever comes at you. It's not tied to whether you win or lose, and it's not tied to whether anyone claps. It's earned by living in line with what you actually believe, on the days nobody's watching. It’s the by-product of consistent authenticity. Conviction is the only one that's entirely in your control. Results depend on outside factors, praise depends on somebody else's mood. But conviction depends on nothing but you showing up as the person you say you are. A confidence that's fully in your control doesn't just help you perform better in one area, it carries into every area of your life. Lincoln didn't have results or praise on his side. What he had was conviction. He had a deep sense of what he believed and a trust that he could handle whatever came next. REAL TALK - Action Steps Knowing the four levels doesn't do much for you. Adjusting to building your confidence in conviction does. Here's where to start.
Level 4 confidence is precisely what you admire in the fearless strivers you watch in awe. They’ve made the choice to stop allowing other people to determine their confidence. It’s a great time for you to do the same. Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here! |
About bcI'm a teacher, coach, and parent seeking excellence while defining success on my own terms. Archives
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