Unlocking the Power of GRIT: A New Perspective on Effort, Purpose, and Coaching

Ready to unlock the powerful concept of grit? We promise you'll leave this episode with an inspiring new perspective on the role of effort, purpose, and motivation in our lives. Drawing on the transformative insights from Angela Duckworth's book, Grit, we dissect how this seemingly simple concept can redefine coaching practices. You'll hear about the profound impact of recognizing effort, uncovering one's personal purpose, and the surprising influence of parenting on mindset. We don't just talk concepts; we also share impactful real-life stories that underscore the power of positive reinforcement.

Meet our esteemed guest, Tim Hagen, who unravels the indispensable role of grit, practice, and coaching in personal and professional growth. Tim drives home the power of effort and repetition, illustrating how they chart a path to sustainable progress. You'll discover how coaching skills can be a game-changer in various workplace situations, whether it's managing challenging employees or fine-tuning team dynamics. Tim wholeheartedly endorses Duckworth's book and inspires you to ask, "What am I doing to enhance my career outside of work?" You'll learn how progress coaching can be your secret weapon to fostering grit and achieving towering success. So, hit play, soak in the wisdom, and up your grit game!

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Chapters

• 0:37 Learning From Thought Leaders About Grit and Coaching
• 6:32 Practice and Coaching for Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

You know, one of the healthiest things that I think we can all do is certainly learn from other thought leaders, and I just have to share this as a best practice, if you will. I have been reading the book Grit by Angela Duckworth and I have to tell you it's just so fascinating and she talks extensively about effort. Now we have a whole program this is not a sales pitch, but we have a whole program called Coaching to Grit. And Do you have Grit? We've built our own grit assessment. For us, grit stands for guts, resilience, intensity and tenacity, and in Angela's book she talks about effort. And then she talks about the power of habit and repetition and rituals and routines and becoming positive creatures of habit and talking about our intention, but then also finding out what's our purpose. And I started to think about it and I started to think to myself wow, that's interesting Because about a year and a half ago I did an assessment from a company and we're certified with them, called the Motivators, which is a company in Utah, a great company, and it's called Fine Mojo, and out of 23 attributes, number 17,. Of my top number 17 was money and I thought now, that's weird, I'm an entrepreneur. And then, after listening to Angela's book talking about purpose, my purpose is really to spread the gospel of coaching. I love coaching.

Speaker 1: 2:08

And she then in I believe it's chapter seven or eight, she talks about kids. And I've coached, as I've used in some of my podcasts. I've coached volleyball for on and off for 31 years and I always love to share the story about the one dad who was really upset because I wasn't yelling at the kids, because they weren't playing well. And he said why aren't you yelling at the kids? They're playing terrible. And I said well, first of all, they're not my kids, first of all. We will get there. And he looked at me. He said but why aren't you? And he was so frustrated and I said here's why Practice will do its work. We just started. We will be a winning team by the end of the year. Out of 31 years, I've only had one losing season and I've only had, in all the years I've coached, only one kid quit.

Speaker 1: 2:57

So what it teaches me is that positive relationship was something called effort. And in her book and I just love this I just cannot tell you how much I love when I was listening to her in her audio book on Audible and I would encourage you to get it. It is fantastic. She talks about infants. You know what do infants do when they fall down or they can't stand up, or they can't sit up they keep trying, they keep trying, they keep trying. And then she makes an observation of kids and that when kids don't win or they have a failure and I don't like to use the term failure, but let's call it a temporary setback, whatever your vernacular is and the parent show an expression and I, literally, listening to this, I pulled over and started to take notes, because this is exactly what we teach in progress coaching. In progress coaching, we talk about effort and when you first start coaching someone, praise their effort, so they keep going. And then, when I'm listening to Angela's book, that's what leads to the rituals, the habits, but that also leads to the interest and hopefully helping someone find their purpose, and it gives you that. It gave me an aha moment.

Speaker 1: 4:10

I contend most people don't have grit. Now I will tell you I have grit. I'm not so sure I have 100% grit in every area, but I will tell you I have grit for the most part. And it was so interesting. Then she talked about pleasure and she talked about that gritty. People are more motivated by purpose than pleasure, and it went back to that. Motivator number 17 was money.

Speaker 1: 4:38

My purpose is to teach people how to coach, is to come up with solutions for coaching scenarios, for workplace scenarios, and one of the great stories that she tells that goes back to which something I've talked about for 30 years we inherit people's children in the workplace. If you have a kid whose parents always complained to the coach and always complained to the teacher about the grade and the kids see this and they do see it the kid ultimately says what well, it can't be me, it's gotta be. I don't like. The teacher likes me. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that through the years. Or the coach doesn't like me. Nobody goes into teaching and coaching with the goal of inevitably meeting your child to end up disliking them. And she tells this story about Katie Ledecky and how she had her first race and she was six and she was holding onto the swim dividers and she got done and her father said did you enjoy it? She goes, that was so much fun. He didn't show a frown cause she didn't win. He didn't yell at her because she was grabbing the lane dividers because she was struggling. She's our most celebrated Olympian.

Speaker 1: 5:52

See, we don't talk about it, but there are defining moments. I'll share one with you on a personal level. My son was playing Little League and back then they had three different age groups all playing together. He was in the younger group. He was not a great baseball player and I remember he did not have a hit. And I remember, I remember his coach, jeff, after every at bat when he would strike out, he could see the disappointment in my son. He'd go up to him and he said, look, you're taking great swings. You're a little bit behind the pitch but I love your swing. And Liam always left those discussion with a smile on his face. And then he had another coach, bill.

Speaker 1: 6:32

That went into the upper ages and he finally got his first hit and he had that aha moment. He learned the value of effort. He learned the value of repetition. He learned the value that Angela dedicates a whole chapter to and we don't talk about it enough Practice. See, when people come to me and they say, tim, we wanna create a coaching culture, we've gotta get our leaders to engage, we have turnover and all these things, and they always ask me what's the key? I said practice First. They gotta show effort. Practice will take care of the rest. When you're coaching somebody who has body odor, when you're coaching someone who wants to get promoted because they started next Friday and oh, by the way, they tend to be, they're the nephew of the CEO You're coaching two top talent where you don't have promotions to work more effectively together because they argue all the time. All three of those scenarios create the need for conversation coaching skills. We cannot just show up and throw up. We have to practice coaching. You have to have a framework. The reason I wanted to share this is because I think what is so critical is that when you think about Angela's work, again, I cannot. I've never met Angela, don't know her, but I cannot put it down In.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Grit, according to her, is the number one determinant of success. It's passion and perseverance over a period of time. We have so much fight or flight battles in our workplace. How often do we hear, oh, that's hard. Well, I don't know. How long will that take? Will I get paid extra? Ask your people something If you want to know if they have grit. Ask them one fundamental question what are you doing outside of work to improve you and your career. And if they hesitate, the answer's nothing. That's not a criticism, that's our opportunity to help our people. First of all, get the book grit by Angela Duckworth. Number two hold on to the principles of progress coaching. Where there's effort, there will be progress. Where there's progress, pinpoint it, acknowledge it. Where there's effort progress, it will lead to something called more predictable, sustainable results.