 Honor the PrivilegeHere we go again. Another day, another bus ride with mom. I’ve been doing this for years now so the idea that being a bus driver was a less than glamorous job never occurred to me, but apparently it is. Even when a few of my friends shared their thoughts on the prestige of the position, I shrugged it off. What do they know anyway? They’re ten.
Kids have to get to school one way or the other and when you live out in the country, the cheese-wagon is a necessary evil. Well, not really evil, just necessary. And, my mom isn’t just a bus driver, she is THE best school bus driver ever. It’s kind of like walking into your grandma’s house, staying for thirty minutes, leaving for seven hours, then coming back for another thirty minutes. Every time you step on, or off, the bus you are sure you are her favorite passenger ever. Have a birthday? She has a treat for you. Tough day at school? She deals her love in hugs. Spelling test later that day? No problem, she’ll quiz you - then check with you on your grade the next day. For my mom, driving a bus was her job, but she viewed it as a privilege. A privilege she honored everyday by the way she showed up for her students and their parents. Why Should We Care? Are you consistently honoring the privilege of your role? If you haven’t thought specifically about it, there’s a good chance the answer to that question is “No”. You have a good idea of what honoring the privilege of your role looks like, but without truly exploring what’s possible you are sure to leave opportunities on the table. Taking advantage of those opportunities is precisely how we honor the privilege. The danger, of course, is to become comfortable or to take our role for granted. As those thoughts of complacency creep in, our actions quickly mirror them. Fewer things become important, there is less urgency to get those things done, and we find less and less joy in doing them. Those honoring their privilege will feel like they are on fire. Their passion and joy will be palpable. You will think they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world other than precisely where they are. They’ll have bad days, but you won’t know. They won’t complain. They have challenges, but they won’t acknowledge them as anything other than an expected part of the process. People who consistently honor the privilege of their role simply choose to take the opportunities that others pass by. It’s not based on circumstances. It’s an intentional choice. REAL TALK - Action Steps If asked, I think virtually everyone would say they want to be great at what they do. The majority of people strive to honor the privilege they’ve been trusted with. Yet, only a few do. Here are a some ideas to put yourself in the company of those few:
We all have roles to play. In our jobs, in our homes, and in our relationships. When we are focused on honoring the privilege of those roles we seem to find a lot more to appreciate while fulfilling them. 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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 Giving & ReceivingIt’s 6:00 am Christmas morning, I’m eight years old, and there are presents begging to be opened. I’m wide awake but my cool teenage roomate, also my brother, is still sound asleep. I weigh the risks of waking him, which mainly consists of a physical beating, but the excitement wins out and I begin nudging him - hoping he would join me on my perusal of the goods.
To my surprise, he agrees and we sneak out of our bedroom to the living room, lit bright by the multi-color lights draped around our Christmas tree. We examine each gift carefully, placing rhetorical bets on the contents of each package. One box catches our eyes. We both have one … and they look exactly the same. His too-old-for-this attitude is shifting back to one of childlike joy. We need to get this show on the road. We wake up mom and dad. They take for-ev-er to get to the living room, but we wait patiently. OK, patiently is a stretch, but we wait. Finally we start passing out presents. My brother and I have four each, plus a stocking. Mom and dad each have one, which they quickly toss to the side as we dig in. In no time we are down to a single package - the one that matches. We tear it open at the same time revealing something we hadn’t even asked for but gladly accept: remote control cars. Not just cars, but off-road dune buggies. Yes, I can now see that it wasn’t that big of a deal but at that moment it might as well have been real cars. Our minds raced bouncing ideas back and forth to each other faster than a ping-pong match over what we might do first. It turns out, we never make it past our first idea. We begin our driving careers with one objective: to be a menace to our two cats. We are enjoying it, but mom is not. Neither are the cats. That’s when my brother comes up with one of his best ideas ever: “Hey, why don’t we tie a hot dog to the back of the cars so the cats chase them?” The rest of our Christmas break from school was now spoken for. We spent hours, then days, racing our cars around the house and yard with our two cats in hot pursuit. It was a great time - for us and the cats. Why Should We Care? I don’t know when the pendulum swings for most people but at some point in our lives a desire to receive gives way to a passion for giving. Atleast, I hope it does because giving is so much better. Now on the other side of the holiday ritual, it’s easy to see that my brother and I weren’t the happiest people that Christmas morning. Mom and dad were. Their gift connected their sons. It connected our family. We laughed. We reenacted. We schemed. What a gift to give. Of course, my brother and I were oblivious to this realization at that moment. We just played. No worry, no concern - just play. We said thank you, but beyond that we simply enjoyed playing with the car and all the experiences that came with it. As the receiver, we are limited to the simple enjoyment of the gift. As the giver, our enjoyment can be magnified by becoming aware of the impact on the receiver. It’s not a revelation, just confirmation. Give more than you receive. REAL TALK - Action Steps How are we sure to be aware of the impact of the gifts we give? That’s a good question. Here are seven boxes to check when you desire to give a gift that will have maximum impact:
At the end of the day, don’t overthink it: give more than you receive. 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!  Perfectly ImperfectWe’re coming off our first loss of the season. We have a great group of guys this season. Each individual is fully invested in their role and prioritizes the team ahead of themselves. It’s a fun group to coach. Of course, that’s not a challenging perspective since we won our first three games by double digits. Now we’ll find out what the group is really like. Everyone is happy when it’s seventy-five and sunny.
It’s not seventy-five and sunny now. We were out-played in our recent loss. They were tougher than us, competed harder than us, and ultimately made the plays necessary down the stretch to win the game. No more pretending. The truth is out: we’re not perfect. Our season won’t be determined by the loss. Or, maybe it will be. Time will tell. Our hope is that it will be determined by our response to it. The adversity could push us to hold ourselves and teammates more accountable, increase the intentionality and consistency of critical details, and drive us to pour ourselves even more into our roles on the team. But, we realize the adversity could just as easily push us to pass blame rather than take responsibility, trigger apathy rather than focus, and cause us to withdraw from the team rather than lean into it. I like the chances of this group though. That’s not to say we’ll win the rest of our games or a state championship. It just means I think we have a chance to maximize our potential. This group has a key characteristic that all great teams possess: shared ownership. They all think the loss is their fault. They know they aren’t perfect. Which is right where we want to be. Why Should We Care? In this same time frame, our senior leader, and one of our best players, expressed an ongoing struggle with holding other people accountable when he isn’t playing as well. His concern is losing the trust of teammates when he is making mistakes. It’s a common and understandable concern, but in this case an unfounded one. He is clearly the leader of our team. And, as much as his level of play has garnered the attention of others outside the program, those inside the program have been steadily drawn to his consistency of work and unselfishness for years. His leadership has blossomed not because of what he’s done, but because of how he’s done it. His toughness, work ethic, and commitment to the team and program are unquestionable. He is a standard bearer in our program. He demands respect by his actions, and is now figuring out how to use his words. He’s built trust through his steadfast behavior, not his flawless performance. It’s ironic that those he leads are drawn to him because they’ve seen him work through the very failures he is concerned about. Everyone of our failures has the potential to draw others closer to us. Similar to our team’s first loss, it’s all about how we handle it. Vulnerability is an agent of trust. Others can deal with a lot less perfection than we realize when we relentlessly admit and confront our failures. No one we lead is looking for perfection - they can’t relate to it. REAL TALK - Action Steps As much as we all would like to be perfect, the reality is we shouldn’t even be thinking about it. Instead we need to be more intentional about embracing our shortcomings - even searching for them. Here are a few ideas on appreciating the value of our flaws.
While our successes mark our path, it’s our failures that clear the way. They should demand just as much of our attention and appreciation. 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!  Clear CutIt’s November, 2005. The basketball season is just getting underway and we are in the process of finalizing our team selections. We’ve had a few practices to evaluate our players and it’s time to make our last set of cuts.
All cuts are not created equal. Conversations with upperclassmen who have made teams in the past, but have been passed by underclassmen and are no longer in a position to make the team are exceptionally difficult - assuming you desire to remain humane and empathetic in the process. Other cuts are obvious and more like the dashing of a whimsical dream. This is the prior. And, I am only four years into my coaching career. Not a good combination. The player strolls into the dark locker room where I’m waiting for him, sitting on a stool in the middle of the room facing the door. I’m too young, or ignorant, to connect his nonchalant entrance as an indicator of his misplaced confidence. That awareness would’ve been helpful. I fumbled on. “So, how do you think it’s been going?” I ask as he takes a seat across from me on one of our benches. Hoping, of course, for him to realize he is far behind most of the other players. He doesn’t hesitate, “Great, I’m playing really well.” Not exactly the answer I was expecting … since he had done nothing ‘really well’ during tryouts. I regroup and hope to help him see how far down the list of players he falls. Surely, with a comparison to the other players in the gym he will recognize his shortcomings. “Ok. Where do you think you are compared to the other guys?” Again, he doesn’t hesitate, “Oh, I think I’m definitely in the top seven, maybe a starter.” So much for my good intentions of helping him become self-aware and leading him to the realization that he isn't good enough to make the team. Yes, I realize how dumb of an idea that is now ... but I'm four years into my career. I knew nothing. This kid is unphased. He remains hopeful, or delusional, throughout the entire meeting. After trying to caress his feelings by easing into the unexpected news, I finally realized he wasn't processing any of it. Clearly, I wasn't being clear. I was left with only one option, hit him right between the eyes ... interrupting him mid-sentence I say “You’re not on the team.” Finally, we had clarity. Why Should We Care? In leadership we spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating when and how to deliver messages to the people we are leading. The more teams I lead and difficult messages I deliver, the more I realize it’s less about the message and more about the relationship between the two people that determines how well the message is received. Conversations like cutting a player from your team will always be difficult, but if I had invested more time into getting to truly know the young man then I would not have felt the need to tippy toe around the real message. I could have just told him. Empathetically of course, but I could've just gotten straight to the point. The same is true for the people you lead. You don’t need a perfectly crafted email or a pristine delivery in just the right environment. What you need is a relationship where you can be candid. Instead of spending time on your email, spend it growing your relationships. On the surface it may seem like you are less willing to be frank with those closest to you in order to keep from hurting them, but you know that’s not true. You say what needs to be said to them precisely because you love them. If you don't care enough about them, you just let them figure it out on their own. So, love those you lead enough to be transparent with them. REAL TALK - Action Steps Simplicity and courage is the combination we are looking for. Here are a few thoughts on becoming more intentional about each.
Our willingness to be transparent with others is a reflection of our respect and care for them. Those we lead not only expect that from us, they deserve it. 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!  The Talent or The TeamWe’re in the midst of putting together a hodgepodge basketball team to compete in the few tournaments being held across the country. It’s 2020 and the majority of the major cities that usually host youth basketball tournaments are shut down. However, there is one place that is still consistently hosting tournaments: Rock Hill, South Carolina.
After a miserable experience with a team, I use that term loosely, constructed based solely on talent and potential; we decide to try the other side of the coin. We prioritize a willingness to put the team first, a desire to pass the ball, and a willingness to serve teammates. Of course we wanted talented players, but unselfishness would take priority every time. Many of these players were always viewed as ‘good’ players, but never as the best. In comparison with the bigger, stronger, faster players they compete against, our guys are typically viewed as a notch, or five, below. Nonetheless, we believe in our guys. We have our team together, so all we need is a name. It came to us around the dinner table as we finished off the remains from the previous night’s meal. Our team name would be “The Leftovers”. Intimidating, huh? It’s perfect. That’s exactly who we are. We’re not a collection of the most talented guys. We’re the ones left after the first picking … and we’re good with that. We immediately call our co-conspirators, the Sheppards, to float the team name. They love it. Uniforms are next. We could get a sponsor and some fancy jerseys with a cool design and each player's names on the back. Or, we could get plain blue mesh jerseys with nothing on them but a stock number screen printed on the back. Which one says Leftovers to you? Right. Plain blue it is. Why Should We Care? The results of our experiment surprised even us a little. We won, a lot. Usually by a lot. And, we never lost. Like all summer teams, especially during the Covid-era, our roster fluctuated from weekend to weekend. Of course, we had our regulars, but the rest of the roster consisted of players that would go on to play college hoops at various levels and a few that would stop playing all together before graduating high school. Regardless of the roster, The Leftovers always won. The priority of the team over talent was undefeated. Obviously we have to be in the talent-ballpark. But, when we are, the team gains a drastic advantage - not the talent. Every. Time. Leaders like to say the team is important, but they don’t believe it. They like to complain about the functioning of the unit, but refuse to lean into members that embody the fabric of the team. As Gandhi so accurately stated, “Actions express priorities.” You never have to ask a leader which they value, just watch: Is the leader attempting to put the best group together to solve a problem or simply throwing the most talent available at it? Is there an appreciation for all roles or an elevated value placed on the roles directly connected to the tangible results? Who gets opportunities - the guy serving himself or the guy serving the team? Does the talent of some individuals allow them more … I’ll call it grace? The biggest challenge we face in the battle between talent and team is our affection for results. There is no question that prioritizing talent can lead to great results at times. And, there is no doubt committing to a focus on the team is a risk that runs the chance of never coming to fruition. Some teams never come together. Most talent earns what the talent says it should. It’s the safer bet. There is one significant downside to prioritizing talent over the team as a leader though: you never reach your full potential. No matter what success you attain, a mutual drive, purpose, and passion of the group to the goal would raise it. Talent is certainly important, and present, on great teams. But, for teams prioritizing the group, the talent doesn’t need to be equal. It just needs to be close … and not nearly as close as most people think. REAL TALK - Action Steps Of course I’m a believer in the team over the talent. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not very talented. But, I’ve also seen the team do things no amount of talent would produce; create passions and emotions that bond a group that no collection of talent could replicate. Here’s a few ideas on setting that into motion for you team:
It’s your team. Lead it however you want. But, if you aspire for your group to reach its full potential, there is really only one option in regards to priorities: the team is number one. 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!  Showing GratitudeIt’s not enough to be grateful. We need to express it.
Here are fifty ideas for expressing your gratitude.
Happy Thanksgiving! 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!  Suffocating ExcusesIt’s still a clear memory. One we had spent the last several months fighting for. It finally happened. In the heat of the game, while emotions ran high, he chose to ignore it. Sure, there were several justifiable reasons to accept it, but he chose not to. It was an excuse.
Instead of turning out, he turned in. He opened his arms instead of closing them, seeking help rather than fanning strength. He accepted reality and gained respect because he chose to ignore an excuse. When facing adversity he used to seek the sympathy of a victim. Now he was owning the challenges just as much as the successes. Rather than hiding, he was confronting. Growth, from that point, was inevitable. The team had become the priority. Now, he had a chance. Now, we had a chance. All by simply suffocating a plausible excuse. Why Should We Care? As long as we are making excuses, we aren’t doing much else. Our resilience is at the mercy of our willingness to accept an excuse. Grow our ability to deny excuses and we move closer and closer to resilience. And, it’s our capacity to persist that will ultimately chart the future of our life. Excuses give us an out. Have you ever noticed that tough people and excuses don’t mix? They’re never together. You’ve never heard someone make an excuse, walk away and think, “Man, what a warrior. She’s so tough.” An excuse is nothing more than a want for sympathy. We say something like, “I didn’t know”, or do something like, turn our palms up in desperation, as a means to share with those around us that we are not at fault. It’s one of our ego’s defense mechanisms to protect itself. But, our ego doesn’t need protecting. It needs exposure, at least if leading and growing are some of our pursuits. Until we become aware of our excuse making habit and intentionally choose to redirect it, we are at the mercy of our emotions. We are a slave to the weakest version of ourselves. Nothing compromises our potential and impact more than our willingness to accept excuses. It’s an odd habit too because it ultimately benefits no one. The excuse-giver feels the momentary warmth of sympathy, only to have it replaced by the cold reality of diminishing personal standards and a depleted self-worth. The excuse-hearer is taxed with the burden of accepting or rejecting the excuse, and the choice of whether to feed into self-pity or provide a jolt of truth. REAL TALK - Action Steps I’m convinced most people don’t want to make excuses. It’s become such a mode of operation that we are oblivious to its occurrence. Awareness is the first step. Here are a few thoughts on becoming more aware of the excuses we make:
Ignoring, suffocating, and eradicating excuses will change your life. Give it a go. 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!  The Consistency of StandardsIs there anything more difficult, in living or leading, than remaining consistent when times get tough? The only thing I can think of that rivals it is remaining consistent when times are fruitful.
It’s the early 2000’s, my coaching career is just getting started, and I’m thinking I’m pretty good at this coaching thing. My first few years we had moderate success which I, of course, attributed to my brilliance on the sidelines. It felt pretty good being so smart. Year four is turning out to be a different story. To my surprise, I’m not quite as smart as I thought. Our five wins through twenty-one games was clear proof in case I needed it. I didn’t - I could feel it. Nothing I did worked to create the immediate result I was chasing. Yelling didn’t work. Patience didn’t work. The new plays didn’t work. The junk defense didn’t work. I was miserable so I did the one thing most of us coaches are experts at: I made our players miserable too. At least for the first half of the year. About half way through the season I realized something I had been blind to: I’m comparing our team to teams of older, more talented players … with a better coach. The next opponent set the standard for us at that point. And, unfortunately, that standard was one we were not prepared to meet. That external comparison will never fully go away, but nothing says we have to prioritize it - especially if it’s not helping us become our best. This revelation led me to adjusting to an internal evaluation of our team’s performance. Instead of focusing on lag measures like the final score, we would prioritize lead measures like ball security, shot selection, rebounding and touches among teammates. These are things that will give us the best opportunity to win games now and in the future. Not to mention, they’re within our control. Winning the game was clearly not. While the disappointment of losing games never dissipated, the satisfaction of growth and forward movement could be felt. We established a new set of high standards. The objective of winning games never went away, and we continued to fail at it, but we began to see and feel progress through our standards. I was unaware of it at the time, but this was a significant transition for our program. We had gone from a program aiming for a moving target, our next opponent, to a program fixed on a stable mark: our own standards. Consistency quickly followed. Why Should We Care? A few years later, we found the other side of the standard coin. Competing was no longer a problem, we were consistently winning games by large margins. Rather than allowing our performance to fluctuate with the talent of our opponents, we maintained our focus on performing to our standards. While standards are mentioned by many of the highest performing teams, it seems the real magic in them often goes unstated. Standards are so powerful because they are the golden pathway to consistency. See, contrary to what most think, it’s not the standards that make you great, it’s the consistency they offer. Consistency is what the best have and what the good and average fail to fully value. It’s easy to become distracted by the external comparison and allure of momentary brilliance. We are flooded with opportunities to allow them to take the wheel of our focus. Elite leaders recognize the distinction between standards and comparison-based successes like winning games and corporate rankings: standards are controllable. To the best leaders it’s not a subtle difference. It’s a glaring one. And, we can only be consistent with the things we can control. With our focus on our standards, where we are squarely in our circle of control, we tap into the consistency all great teams operate with. REAL TALK - Action Steps So, the obvious questions: how do we create standards and how do we operate by them? Good questions. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Our standards are actions that are fully within our control. This control fuels one of the most critical attributes of every great team: consistency. And, with most teams, it’s a daily fight. 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!  Where You BelongIt’s early November, which can only mean one thing: high school basketball season is here. Even after twenty-five years, the start of the season still feels like opening your most anticipated birthday present. The anticipation never gets old.
As great as the excitement around the start of season is, it also carries with it my least favorite part of coaching - making team cuts. Nothing in the profession comes close to it. Some are certainly easier than others, but delivering the news to a fifteen or sixteen year old that desperately wants to be a part of your team is never enjoyable. More often than not it’s downright awful, yet necessary. Of course, back in the day, these tough conversations were avoided by simply posting a list of the players who made the team. Everyone else was left wondering if their name had just been forgotten. It’s a cowardly approach that disregards a young man’s efforts and courage. I suppose the effort required may depend on the standards of the program, but the courage to tryout is a direct reflection of the makeup of that young man. That courage needs to be honored. Society does the best it can to beat it out of us - stay between the lines, play it safe, don’t rock the boat. Regardless of whether a player makes the team or not, as a coach I have a responsibility to recognize the risk taken to attempt to make a team of twelve in a school of three thousand. If maintained and fostered, that is a trait of a successful person regardless of the result of a high school basketball tryout. The other aspect of the risk these young men are willing to take that beckons my attention is always a simple question: why? Why do these guys keep trying out? Why do they keep coming back? Our entire fall preseason conditioning program is grueling, our weight room sessions three days per week are exhausting, and our breakfast club workouts every morning will make the most dedicated weary. While the struggle and challenge drives some away, it draws others in. Our desire to belong to something runs much deeper than we know. Why Should We Care? Understanding and appreciating the significance of belonging is a powerful leap for a leader. It will change the way you organize meetings, interact with colleagues in the hallways, make promotions, celebrate wins, welcome people onto the team, and communicate off-boarding news. But, more than anything it will allow you to fully value the people you are leading. You can find plenty of books out there talking about evolutionary history for the need to belong to a group or tribe. I’m not disagreeing with any of them - they all make sense. I mean, I wouldn’t want to get eaten by a sabertooth tiger either so being a part of a group where I’m not the slowest one seems like a pretty good life choice. In today’s world you almost have to try to not belong to a group. Your family, your place of employment, your Thursday night softball league team, your stamp collecting chapter, your dog walking club, your motorcycle gang … the list could go on forever. Even going out of your way to be different will likely align you with a brotherhood of misfits that satisfies your unknown desires for belonging while rebelling against it. Now the calling is more about discovering where you want to belong. And, from a leadership perspective, creating an environment and a set of standards that is appealing to those you want to belong to your team. All aspects of your culture are at play - your words matter, your actions matter, your vision matters, your values matter. Culture has become such a buzz word that we’ve lost sight of the functionality of it. This is one of the primary roles of our culture in our organizations. Our culture should be drawing in the people we want to belong to our team and expelling those we don’t want. REAL TALK - Action Steps Of course, people wanting to be a part of our team is a good thing. Some motives will naturally be impure or self-promoting. In the best organizations those driven by their desires for prestige or money will be washed out by the standards that drive the teams success. Ideally we can avoid those self-seeking individuals and get right to the people that want to be with us for pure reasons. Here are a few ideas to consider when trying to create a culture that will do just that:
We all want to belong to something. Leading with this understanding will allow us to create a culture that gathers ‘our’ people together. 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!  Relief PitchersIt’s the spring of 1995. We are in our final run as high school athletes, attempting to survive the Ohio High School Athletic Association baseball tournament. Coming off a less than impressive 12 - 11 regular season, the prospects of a deep tournament run aren’t exactly the popular bet.
We know we haven’t been a great team to this point, but we’re also just dumb enough to think … well, maybe… We win our first couple tournament games fairly comfortably - as comfortably as a five hundred ball club can win a game. Then, in the sectional final our catcher, and cleanup hitter, Trevin Bair leaps into the spotlight by hitting a grand slam to give us a win over an all state pitcher. We live to see another day. Our unimpressive record is easily the worst at this point in the tournament. But, with each win our confidence and excitement grow. Soon we forget we have been mediocre all year long. We are starting to believe we’re going to win. Our belief is translating into our play on the field. We advance to the round of thirty-two, then sixteen, then eight, then four … and before we know it we are one of two teams remaining in the state. In order to advance in any tournament, things have to go your way. You have to put yourself in the position, but at some point luck needs to be on your side. And, while we had several things fall into place, nothing was more significant than a timely rainout which allowed our pitching rotation to be maintained. In baseball, that’s a pretty big deal. We had two pitchers: Brent Parke and David Dowty. Rather than be forced to pitch our third and fourth pitcher, the rainout allowed Brent and David the rest they needed to continue in the critical roles they had settled into. Their brilliance was the driving force behind our success. Brent was the starter. He was a great athlete with a lively arm and pinpoint control. He threw hard and liked to work off his fastball most games. Brent was taxed with getting us off to a good start and would pitch the first five to six innings of every one of our tournament games. David was the closer. He relied on his big, bending curve ball to finish out the games. David’s calm and confidence suited him perfectly for this role. The contrast between the two proved to be a challenge for even the best teams to handle. The beauty in the whole thing was their acceptance of each of these roles. David didn’t want to be Brent and Brent didn’t want to be David. Why Should We Care? The storybook leadership fable sounds something like this: you, the leader, take a bunch of helpless underachievers and turn them into a team of high functioning winners. They start at zero and, because of your leadership, end up at ten. The truth is no one really starts at zero and most never make it to ten. As it turns out, this is one of the most difficult aspects of leadership for many to accept. In the pitching rotation of leadership, you may not get to be the closer. Actually, there is a good chance you aren’t the closer. It’s much more likely that you’re simply a relief pitcher - someone who bridges the gap between the starting pitcher and the closing pitcher. There is a lot to do - goals to achieve and milestones to surpass. While those are important and can never be neglected, the focus must never change: move your people forward. That’s rarely going to be the finish line. That’s ok. Just keep moving them forward. REAL TALK - Action Steps The challenge we face as leaders is internal, not external. That’s what makes it so difficult, we can’t see it. We have to do our best, then trust. But, trust what? Like everything else, the best things take time. Our life is no different. Whether it’s our faith, our relationships, or our talents, time is required for growth and depth. Here are few thoughts on becoming the best relief pitcher you can be:
Relief pitchers epitomize leadership. The glory is limited, but the value is extreme. We should be leaning into this role rather than looking to escape it. 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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