 Demanding or DemeaningWhen you take over a new team or program, there are typically one of two reasons: the previous coach left for a better opportunity or the previous coach was fired. The latter was the case for the two and fourteen San Francisco 49ers in 1979. The organization was a mess and the locker room was a disaster. Most leaders would charge into the situation with brute force, calling on fear to push people harder and harder until the necessary changes were made. But, Bill Walsh isn’t most leaders.
To be clear, he was relentlessly demanding. He identified thirty separate physical skills required to play a single offensive line position, then built a drill for each one. He required tucked shirts, punctuality, no profanity, and no sitting during practice. And, everyone, from Jerry Rice to the receptionist at the front desk, was held to the same non-negotiable Standard of Performance. Nothing was beneath his attention and nothing was acceptable at less than full effort. But most noted by his former coaches and players was his ability to do so without degrading people. When something went wrong, there was no finger-pointing, no public humiliation. It was direct and matter-of-fact, always citing the mistake followed immediately by the correction. He critiqued himself just as hard as he critiqued anyone else. Walsh understood something that too many leaders never fully grasp. Demanding more from someone is an act of belief. When he believed in a player, like a third-round draft pick named Joe Montana that most scouts had written off, he made sure in word and deed that the player knew exactly how much he believed in him. Demeaning, on the other hand, is an act of contempt. They can look almost identical from the outside but they come from completely different hearts. One says I know you're capable of more. The other says Is that all you’ve got? The standard is the same. The words and impact are not. Why Should We Care? The power leadership offers doesn't build our character as much as it exposes it. The pressure of a struggling team member or a repeated mistake is when our real heart posture shows up. And you can bet the people we lead feel it, even if they choose to not articulate it. They instinctively know the difference between a leader who pushes them because they believe in them and one who tears them down because they don’t. The real danger for the leader is self-deception. It's easy to convince ourselves we're just "high-standards" people while our ego is actually just running on emotion and pride. Demanding behavior that comes from a humble, others-focused heart builds people up. The exact same behavior, sometimes the exact same words, coming from a judgmental or self-serving heart tears people down. Our people know the difference, even when we don't. And this doesn't just apply to how we lead others. It applies to how we lead ourselves. When we pursue excellence in our own lives, we have to monitor our inner dialogue. The principle doesn't change. Demanding without demeaning, even with yourself, is a posture of belief and dignity, not punishment. Heart posture is the lens through which everything else gets interpreted. REAL TALK - Action Steps You already know whether you lean toward demanding or demeaning. You can feel it. The question is what you do with that knowledge. Here are three things you can act on today:
The line between demanding and demeaning is rarely visible in the moment. It lives in our why, the intentionality and posture of heart we carry into every interaction. An uncompromising standard and genuine dignity for people are not in conflict. Real excellence is built on both. Guard your heart, lead from it well, and the standard will take care of itself. 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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 Roots Not BranchesA sequoia tree stands as tall as a thirty-five story building. When you see one for the first time your brain immediately assumes it must have roots that extend hundreds of feet into the earth to hold up all that weight. But you'd be wrong. The sequoia's roots go down only six to twelve feet. That's it. For a tree that weighs more than 2.5 million pounds, that’s not very deep.
So how does it stand and survive earthquakes, floods, fires, and winds that would topple almost anything else? The answer is in what you can't see. The roots spread outward up to a hundred feet from the trunk, intertwining with the roots of other sequoias in a vast underground web. The trees don't survive alone. As a matter of fact, you never see them alone. They form groves where their roots fuse together, literally merging into one interconnected system. When storms come, the wind can't knock down a single tree without knocking down the entire grove. The shallow roots that look like a weakness are actually the tree's greatest strength, because they connect rather than isolate. If you walked through a sequoia grove and tried to judge which tree was strongest based on what you could see above ground, you'd focus on the wrong thing entirely. You'd look at the tallest trunk, the widest girth, and all the visible, cosmetic markers of strength. But the actual source of that tree's ability to stand for 2,000 years is completely underground, invisible, and unimpressive to look at. Not to mention, shared with every other tree around it. The world only sees the branches. The world never sees the roots. And that's exactly the problem with how most people approach life, leadership, and excellence. Why Should We Care? We live in a culture that worships branches and ignores roots. Everyone wants the shortcut, the hack, the how-to that skips the work and jumps straight to the results. They see someone with a successful business and want the profit, not the decade of failure that taught them what actually works. They see an athlete performing on the biggest stage and want the recognition, not the years of discipline that built the foundation of the performance. It's all branches, no roots. Like the sequoia's root system, when it comes to sustainable excellence depth matters less than connection, and what's invisible matters more than what everyone notices. Most people are trying to grow their roots deeper when what they actually need is to grow their roots wider by connecting with others, building systems that don't depend on themselves alone, developing character and habits that nobody sees but everybody benefits from. Our addiction to smartphones is the ultimate expression of this branch-focused mentality. They give us the illusion of connection with likes and followers while destroying our actual root system of deep relationships, sustained focus, and the ability to be alone with our thoughts. Everyone's optimizing for what shows up on the screen. The best leaders have a healthy disdain for anything that becomes popular too quickly because they understand that truly valuable things rarely go viral. When everyone's chasing the same shortcut, the same trending strategy you can almost guarantee it's not where the real work happens. REAL TALK - Action Steps Building a root system instead of just impressive branches requires intentional choices about where you invest your time, energy, and attention. Here are a few areas to focus on:
We live in a world that worships branches and ignores roots. Most people don't want the truth about what builds sustainable excellence. Stop optimizing for what people see. Start building what holds you up when nobody's watching. 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!  Create, Don't ManageThere's a version of life most of us are living that we didn't actually sign up for. We wake up, scan the horizon and spend the day managing circumstances. We manage what people think. We manage uncertainty. We manage fallout. It feels responsible. It feels necessary. But it's exhausting, and deep down, we know something is missing.
Because it is. In 1943, a Hungarian-Jewish psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl was stripped of everything. His family. His freedom. Loaded into cattle cars, Frankl entered the Nazi concentration camps with nothing but his mind and the clothes on his back. By every physical measure, he was a victim of his circumstances. But Frankl made a decision inside those camps that robbed his captors of their power and eventually changed how the world understood the human spirit. He decided that while they could control his environment, they could never control what he made of it. Frankl began creating meaning out of the most meaningless suffering. He created a future, in his mind, even as the present tried to destroy him. He survived. He wrote. He taught. He created. What Frankl discovered in the worst circumstances imaginable was that creation and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. When you are genuinely creating, fear has no power. Managing circumstances is reactive, survival mode. Creation is generative. It moves forward. Fear lives in management. Faith lives in creation. Why Should We Care? Stress is almost always the product of managing circumstances. When we focus on controlling outcomes, fixing perceptions, and responding to problems, we operate from a deficit. We're always behind. Always on defense. Always one move away from catastrophe. The moment you shift your focus from how do I manage this? to what am I building here?, your entire posture changes. The question moves from defense to offense. From fear to faith. It's the difference between a life that is happening to you and a life you are actively building. Faith is a prerequisite for creation. You can't build something you can't see without it. Frankl couldn't see his freedom. He built toward it anyway. Every great coach, teacher, parent, or leader who has ever done something remarkable has had to create in the absence of certainty. They didn't manage their way to significance. They created their way there. Managing circumstances requires control. Creation requires trust. Managing keeps your eyes on the problem. Creation keeps your eyes on the possibility. And, you can't do both at the same time. You're either managing or creating. You're either reacting or building. You're either operating in fear or operating in faith. The people worth following aren't the ones who have the cleanest circumstances. They're the ones who refuse to let their circumstances determine what they build. REAL TALK - Action Steps Here are three things you can put to work right now to shift from managing to creating.
The circumstances of your life are not the point. What you create from them is. Stop managing. Start building. Fear can't survive in a life that's under active construction. 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!  Hold Your PenWe live in the most opinionated era in human history. Everyone has a platform. Everyone has a take. And everyone thinks their opinion matters. News flash - it doesn’t … and never has.
In 2004, this kinda dorky, thirteen-year-old kid from England decides he wants to be a musician. Although he carried his acoustic guitar everywhere with him, by sixteen he'd still been rejected more times than he could count. A few good-intentioned adults even informed him that he had better come up with a backup plan, which he did. He dropped out of school and spent the next several months hanging around and sleeping outside of any venue he could get to in order to stay around music. But, Ed Sheeran had a crystal clear idea of what success was to him. He wasn't measuring himself by other people’s opinions or counting doors slamming in his face as failures. He was measuring success by his growth and fulfillment. The criticism didn't faze him. When fans started showing up and YouTube clips started spreading, he stayed the course. The praise didn’t faze him either. Eventually, Elton John heard a small sample of his work and sent Sheeran a tour bus. Then, Jamie Foxx let him sleep in his Hollywood home for six weeks while he found his footing. The rest is history. Far too many brilliant, capable people hand their pen to their story. Praise. Criticism. Doesn't matter. Both can wreck us if we’re not careful. We’ve talked a lot about not allowing the scoreboard to define us, but there’s a sneakier version of the same trap. Sure, we have to tangle with the question - will you let the outcome define you? But, it seems an equally prominent question these days is will you let someone else’s opinion of the outcome define you? Why Should We Care? As leaders, whether we’re coaching a team, raising a family, or running a business we are going to be evaluated constantly. Formally and informally, to our face and behind our back. We’ll get feedback that's useful and feedback that's useless. Often the most confident voices in the room will be the least qualified to speak on who we are and what we’re capable of. When we let criticism define our ceiling or let praise define our identity, we’ve handed the pen to someone who doesn't live with the consequences of our story. And, the reality is that most people giving us feedback, even the well-meaning ones, are working off incomplete information. They don't see our morning routines. They don't know what we’ve overcome to get here. They aren't watching the film of our entire career. They're watching a single play. The best leaders are feedback consumers, not feedback dependents. They listen, like really listen, because they're secure enough not to be threatened by whatever the feedback says. They sift through it with a singular focus - does this make me better? If yes, they use it. If no, they set it down and walk away. They don't dismiss people. They don't get defensive. But they also don't let the crowd rewrite their purpose. They've done the hard internal work of knowing who they are, what they value, and where they're going. That foundation is what makes honest feedback a gift. When we are clear on our purpose, external noise loses its power to paralyze us. Criticism becomes data. Praise becomes encouragement. Neither becomes our identity. And when we can operate from that place, we become the kind of leader people are drawn to follow. REAL TALK - Action Steps Knowing and doing are two different things. It’s not enough to know. We must do. Here are three things you can put to work right now to keep a hold of your pen.
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!  To See If You CanIf “to see if I can” isn’t a good enough reason for you … we probably can’t be friends.
Now, I’m probably not climbing El Capitan but I do like to try things just to see. My wife would happily confirm that most of the time there’s really no tangible benefit and the risk pales in comparison to the reward, but still, we’ll give it a try. I’m not completely sure why, other than it just feels right. Alex Honnold did climb El Capitan. The 3,000 foot granite wall had never been climbed - well, not by someone alone with no ropes, no harness, and no safety net. Honnold relied solely on his hands, feet, and relentless focus he had built in the shadows. Free soloing El Capitan had been considered essentially impossible. Not only that, but the world hadn't asked for it. Nobody needed it. Only a few had ever even considered it. There was no contract waiting, no trophy at the top, and no crowd cheering from the base of the mountain. When people pressed Honnold on why he would risk everything, his reason was simple: to find out exactly what he was capable of. He wanted to see if he could. That was it. That was the whole reason. On June 3, 2017 he found out. He could. Why Should We Care? Leadership and the pursuit of excellence share a common enemy: comfort. The moment we stop testing what we are capable of and start settling for the acceptable, we've already begun to shrink. Honnold didn't free solo El Capitan because someone told him to or because there was an obvious external reward attached. He did it because the question of whether he could mattered more to him than the certainty of staying comfortable. That's the internal scoreboard talking. That's a man living in alignment with his own standard of excellence, not the world's. The people you lead are watching how you carry yourself when the outcome isn't guaranteed. When the path forward is unclear and it would be perfectly reasonable to pull back is precisely when your choices matter the most. Your people are not watching to see if you win every time. They're watching to see if you still show up with the same commitment and curiosity when there's nothing certain on the other side. The leader who moves toward difficulty because they genuinely want to find out what's there is the one that sets the temperature of the room. Contrary to what most people think, exploring your limits isn't reckless. It's responsible. Honnold made a commitment to the process of becoming. It required honesty about where he was, humility to keep improving, and the kind of courage that doesn't need applause to keep going. To see if you can is a perfectly good reason - and the answer doesn’t really even matter. REAL TALK - Action Steps Consistently stretching that comfort zone isn’t natural. Here are three things you can act on today to move that direction:
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!  Thank You or Thank MeThere aren’t a lot of celebrities we know by one name: LeBron, Kobe, Madonna, Beyonce. They’re always people that have stood out as the standard for their profession. In acting, one of the few single-name icons is Denzel. Few have done it better.
If you ask Denzel how he became one of the greatest actors of his generation, he won't even acknowledge his talent. He won't talk about his work ethic or his natural presence on the screen. He'll tell you about Billy Thomas at the Boys Club in Mount Vernon. Billy was a counselor who hung college pennants on the club's walls. You go to college, you get a pennant of your school hung. Denzel would stare at those pennants from schools he’d never heard of with dreams of possibility flooding his head. He was so impressed with Billy that he started imitating And, then there was Bob Stone, Denzel’s English teacher at Fordham who had been on Broadway. After Denzel appeared in a student production of Othello, Stone wrote him a letter of recommendation that essentially said, "If you don't have the talent to nurture this young man, then don't accept him." Denzel still carries that letter in his wallet and reads it any time he needs to re-center. When Denzel gave the commencement speech at Dillard University in 2015, he opened with this: "I want to congratulate all the parents and friends and family and aunties and uncles and grandmothers and grandfathers, and teachers and friends and enemies. All the people that helped you to get where you are today, congratulations to you all." He continued, "Everything that you think you see in me. Everything that I've accomplished, everything that you think I have - and I have a few things. Everything that I have is by the grace of God. Understand that. It's a gift." Two-time Academy Award winner. Cultural icon. One of the most respected actors in Hollywood. And his first instinct when talking about his success? Gratitude. Not self-congratulation. Gratitude. If someone asked you how you arrived where you are, would your answer sound more like self-congratulation or gratitude? Why Should We Care? The myth of the self-made man is seductive because it feels empowering. If you're self-made, you don't owe anyone anything. Your success is yours alone. Nobody else. Pound your chest. Claim your power. But, prepare to live with the entitlement, arrogance, and isolation that comes with it. Acknowledging the people who helped you doesn't diminish your accomplishments. Nobody gets anywhere alone. The teacher who stayed late to help you. The mentor who made the introduction that changed your trajectory. The friend who believed in you when you didn't believe in yourself. The parent who sacrificed so you could have an opportunity they never had. When we start believing our own narrative about being self-made, we become insufferable leaders. We stop seeing the contributions of others because we're too busy telling the story of our own greatness. We stop expressing gratitude because we've convinced ourselves we earned it all on our own. And in the process, we create cultures where people feel used rather than valued, where contribution goes unacknowledged, and where entitlement replaces humility. Living with a heart of gratitude doesn't mean you deny your hard work or minimize your effort. Denzel worked hard. He showed up. He took risks. But he also had Billy Thomas hanging pennants on walls. He had Bob Stone writing letters. Both things are true - he worked hard, and he had help. Gratitude is what allows you to hold both truths simultaneously. When you're genuinely grateful for the people who helped you climb, you don't start acting like you built the mountain. REAL TALK - Action Steps Shifting from self-congratulation to gratitude requires intentional practices that retrain your brain to see the web of people who made your success possible. Here are a few ideas along those lines:
The truth is, you didn't get here alone. Neither did I. When we lead with gratitude instead of self-congratulation, we become the kind of leaders people actually want to follow. 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!  Who Do You Believe In?There has been one team in NBA History to win a championship without a Hall of Fame player on their roster. No MVP candidates. No high profile guys that were marketed as the face of the league. No player on their roster even averaged more than 18 points per game. Just twelve guys who believed in the team more than themselves.
The Detroit Pistons, at the Palace of Auburn Hills, spoke for every team-minded person when they beat the Los Angeles Lakers in June of 2004 to capture the NBA Championship. Leaning on the team, the Pistons were able to counter the talent of four future Hall of Famers - Shaq, Kobe, Karl Malone, and Gary Payton. And, they didn’t just beat them. They dominated them 4-1 in the NBA Finals. The Lakers were built prioritizing talent - the Pistons prioritizing team. The stars over the system. Individual brilliance that was supposed to outshine collective effort. On paper, it wasn't even close. But the game isn't played on paper and in basketball two plus two doesn’t always equal four. Of course, that requires leadership that wholeheartedly believes in the power of a team. Larry Brown was that guy. Coach Brown built a culture around defense, sacrifice, and trust. Roles became clear. Players became empowered. No name guys became major contributors to a championship-caliber team. Chauncey Billups earned the nickname "Mr. Big Shot" because his teammates trusted him in the biggest moments. Richard ‘Rip’ Hamilton ran himself into exhaustion every night swerving in and out of screens set by Ben Wallace - an undersized, undrafted big man who would eventually become Defensive Player of the Year in the league three times over. All because they bought into the identity of the team rather than the individual. Chauncey Billups was named Finals MVP despite not even making the All-Star team in 2004. He minced no words in his acceptance speech: "They may have had the better individuals, but we always felt we were the better team." Talent certainly matters, but it’s not the deciding factor so many think it is. The talent just needs to be in the ballpark. The Lakers believed in their individual talent. The Pistons believed in their team. Why Should We Care? Belief in the individual looks seductive because talent is easy to see. You can measure points, stats, and accolades. You can talk potential and sell hope for what might be. It’s tangible. People can see it. They can add it up, rank it. Two plus two should equal four. But belief in the individual is dangerous because it creates environments where the most talented players aren’t held accountable, roles are undervalued, and protecting ego becomes more important than pursuing excellence. And, just wait for adversity to hit - the lack of a true foundation immediately becomes unnervingly clear. Belief in the team is harder to build because it requires sacrifice from everyone. Yes, that includes your best, most talented, players. It requires everyone, especially your top performers, to buy into something bigger than themselves. It means roles are clearly defined to create freedom and empowerment rather than allowing them to remain vague and limiting. They are ultimately used to maximize each individual’s contribution to the team. It means accountability is universal, not selective. The most talented don’t get a pass due to their talent, they’re held to a higher standard precisely because of it. On these teams, two plus two always adds up to way more than four. When you believe in the team, trust is a multiplier. People cover for other’s weaknesses. They celebrate teammates' successes. They embrace roles instead of resenting them. The team becomes resilient because they depend on each other, not themselves. REAL TALK - Action Steps Building a culture that believes in the team over the individual doesn't happen by accident. It requires intentional decisions that protect the team even when it's uncomfortable. Here are a few thoughts on moving in this direction with your team:
Of course talent matters. But, so does the team. One has to be the priority, the other just part of the equation. When you choose to believe in the team, your potential is no longer limited to the sum of the parts. 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 JudgersStarting is hard. Putting yourself out there is scary. Going for it when you are filled with doubt is one of the most difficult, and rewarding, choices you will ever make. But, you better believe there will be no shortage of critics. Fortunately, often all we need is that first believer.
He had just posted on Reddit about one of the most humiliating experiences of his life. It was his first time at a gym, but once there his nervousness only grew as he began his workout. When he struggled with the lightest of weights, a few muscle-heads a few stations over laughed at him. Immediately demoralized, he vowed to never go back. While the onlookers at the gym were critics, one Reddit poster was not. Arnold Schwarzenegger, seven time Mr. Olympia and one of the most famous bodybuilders in history, saw the post - why he was on Reddit at the time I have no idea. And, he responded, "I always say don't be afraid of failure, because how far can you really fall? You found out. To the ground. Now we know it isn't that far, and you can get up. Keep going. I promise it gets better." His post continued, "The last guy I rooted for broke a world record in the dead lift. You have more in common with him than you think. He started out lifting just the bar too. We all did. You took the first step and you fell, but at least you fell in the right direction, so get back up and take the next step. Keep moving forward." This guy may have been just trying to do his first squat, but the pattern holds for all levels of achievement. Those in the arena don’t judge, that’s a special given by those outside the arena. A bodybuilder remembers what it was like when he started out and could barely lift the bar. He supports and encourages him because he understands the process, the struggle. Keep this in mind when you’re choosing who to listen to, or thinking about being critical, it's always the people going nowhere who are judging. Why Should We Care? The judgment most people fear isn't coming from where they think it is. When they start something new, take a risk, attempt something difficult, their brain tells them that everyone is watching and judging. And you're right, some people are judging. But what you need to understand is that the people whose judgment actually matters aren't judging you. They're rooting for you. They remember their first failed business or last terrible performance. They know that trying and falling is the only way to move forward, to progress at all. The people who are judging you are the ones standing still. They're the people who have accepted mediocrity and need to mock beginners to feel superior. Arnold's identity wasn't threatened by someone else's attempt at growth. When you're secure in who you are (not what you’ve done), you don't need to protect yourself from others' efforts, you can celebrate them. Who you listen to will either accelerate or sabotage your growth. If you're making decisions based on what the judgmental bystanders think, you'll play it safe, avoid risks, and stay stuck in comfortable mediocrity. The question isn't whether people will judge you when you try something difficult. They will. The question is, whose voice are you going to let matter? REAL TALK - Action Steps Learning to tune out judgment from people going nowhere while listening to wisdom from people who've been where you want to go requires intentional practices that help you discern which voices deserve your attention. Here are a few ideas to help you embrace that perspective:
When you're attempting something difficult, the judgment will come. Get ready for it. It should not surprise you. But if you listen carefully, you'll notice that the harshest criticism comes from people who have never done what you're trying to do. The people who have actually climbed the mountain don't stand at the bottom mocking those trying to start the ascent. 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!  Courage is ContagiousIf you’re a Jordan fan, you remember the commercial clearly. You’d never thought about the message he shared from that direction; but the moment you heard it, you knew just how true it was.
The commercial starts with Jordan walking down a hall, photographers' cameras clicking in the background, when you hear him say: "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." What made this commercial so appealing wasn't what Jordan said. It was that he said it at all. Here was the greatest basketball player in the world (and of all time … you know it’s true), at the peak of his career, publicly cataloging his failures. He'd been cut from his high school varsity basketball team, lost hundreds of games, and missed thousands of shots during his career. But instead of hiding those failures, he was broadcasting them to millions. The commercial was impactful because it revealed the under-appreciated connection between courage and fear. Jordan was modeling a completely different relationship with failure and, in turn, a different relationship with the courage to move forward in spite of it. Fear spreads when people hide their failures and pretend excellence comes easy. Courage becomes contagious when we are willing to own our failures publicly and make it safe for others to do the same. Why Should We Care? We don't just catch each other's colds. We catch each other's habits, behaviors, and beliefs too. The emotional climate of any team or organization is contagious. When a leader operates from fear by avoiding risks, magnifying failures, or playing it safe to protect their reputation; that fear spreads like a virus through their entire team. But when a leader models courage by taking calculated risks, processing failure as feedback, and staying calm in uncertainty; that courage becomes equally contagious. This is one of the reasons why the people we surround ourselves with matter so much. If you're surrounded by people who operate from scarcity and fear, you'll absorb that mindset whether you try to or not. But, if you're around people who process failure as part of the process you'll develop an entirely different relationship with courage and risk. Your mindset around failure doesn't just affect you. It shapes the entire culture of your team. The leaders who build truly resilient teams aren't always those with the most talent or resources, they're the ones who have learned to process failure in ways that inspire courage rather than spread fear. REAL TALK - Action Steps Becoming someone who spreads courage rather than fear requires intentional practices around how you process failure and how you create environments where others feel safe taking risks. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Fostering contagious courage is really pretty simple. Surround yourself with people whose courage is more contagious than their fear, whose response to struggle strengthens you rather than diminishes you. Then, be that for others. 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!  Be a Verb, Not a NounMeet Gregg Popovich. The winningest coach in NBA history, five-time NBA champion, and what most would consider one of the best coaches in the history of basketball, maybe all of sport. Even with all the accolades, the most remarkable aspect of Popovich’s legacy is what his former players say about him. They don’t lead with his win-loss record or his championship runs. To them, “coach” was a title that was insufficient to describe what he meant to them.
For example, in 2018 DeMar DeRozan had just received word that his father had passed away. Devastated and sitting alone in his San Antonio hotel room DeRozan heard a knock minutes after informing the Spurs front office of his loss and plans to head home for the arrangements. It was Pop. He sat in the room and cried with DeRozan for two hours. In simple Pop fashion he declared, “I’m not leaving until you leave.” When another former Spurs player, Dejuan Murray, spoke about Popovich, he got emotional and said, "I love that dude to death, man. He's like a father to me. When I would lose people, I would go to his room, and he would give me that hug. I would cry on his shoulder. I'd vent to him. He was just there for me. And that has nothing to do with basketball. We're talking about real life." Popovich was “Coach” by title. It was a noun that described his position. But his actions, the behaviors, the way he showed up day after day is what defined who he actually was. He wasn't great because he was a coach. He was a great coach because of how he coached, how he cared, how he showed up for his players when they needed him most. The title gave him access. The actions earned him influence. The difference between the two is everything. Why Should We Care? We've got this thing all backwards. We chase titles, positions, and labels as if those things define us. We act as if becoming president or head coach or COO is the goal. But titles are simply the nouns. They're descriptors of where you sit in an organizational chart or at the meeting table. They might grant you authority, but they don't make you a leader. They might give you a team, but they don't make you someone worth following. The mistake we make is thinking that once we achieve the title, that it defines us. But, it's the verbs, the daily actions and behaviors, that determine whether that title means anything at all. Far too many people get promoted into positions of authority and then spend the rest of their careers protecting the title rather than living out the behaviors that made them deserve it in the first place. They become more concerned with their title than with actually leading. They focus on maintaining their position rather than serving the people in their charge. But the truth is people don't follow titles. They follow actions. Your title might get you in the room, but your behaviors determine whether anyone listens to you once you're there. REAL TALK - Action Steps Shifting from title-focused to action-focused leadership requires intentional practices that keep you grounded in what you do rather than what you're called. Here are a few ideas to maintain that focus:
Stop worrying about whether you're called a leader. Start focusing on whether you're actually leading. Be a verb, not a noun. Let your actions speak louder than any title ever could. 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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