How managers build grit for consistent team performance

Brad: It's very easy to get caught up on that end goal, whatever it is, whether it's, you know, bringing in $100 million or launching that new product or whatever, but it's the little things that aren't so little. But it's those little things that you can do every day that, man, they just they get you to where you need to be at the end of the day, but you've got to keep that discipline.
Voiceover: Welcome back to the Ways of Working podcast, your weekly dose of practical tips for senior leaders who are looking for a performance edge without burning themselves or their teams out.
Jimmy: Today, we're talking with founder of the School of Grit, and graduate of Kokoro Camp, which is the civilian Navy SEAL training equivalent, Brad Ritter. Brad, welcome to the show. How are you?
Brad: Hey, what's up, Jimmy? Thanks for having me on, man. I really appreciate this and looking forward to it, brother.
Jimmy: Likewise. I try not to say this, but I am genuinely excited by having you on the show. And I want to, you know, the the thing that was exciting to me was the two words, "grit" and "Navy SEAL civilian equivalent training". I want to go straight there. What is Kokoro Camp, and can you just tell us a little bit about that experience, and how you ended up in that experience, and what you learned from that experience? Because I think there's some really great lessons in there.
Brad: Yeah, how much time do we have, dude? Cuz I could I could talk about this for hours. There There's a lot there.
Jimmy: We'll go as We'll go as long as our conversation is fun for everybody to listen to.
Brad: Right on, man. So, yeah, as you said, I graduated from Kokoro Camp, which is it's based on Navy SEAL training. Now, I'll be the first one to throw my hand up. I don't want to be a Navy SEAL. Still don't want to be a Navy SEAL, I'm much too old for it. But what I liked about their training, what I knew of their training was that they were considered some of the baddest people on the planet because of what they put themselves through, you know, physically, mentally, emotionally. And I thought, "Man, if I could just get a taste of that, wouldn't that make life just a little bit easier?" Not Not that life would be easy, but if I could learn some of those tools, some of those tactics to deal with high-pressure situations, without my life literally being on the line and being in life and death situations. Man, how would that translate to you know, I'm a dad, so I've got kids, and you know, I'm married and dealing with, you know, relationships and you know, I have a W-2 job as well, so I've got I've got that, and and work with a lot of a lot of folks all across the country. So um So that's Kokoro Camp and kind of what got me what got me interested in it. Because when I tell people, "Oh, yeah, I signed up for this camp where they put me through 50 hours of training, and no sleep, and minimal food." They're like, "Why would you do that? Like, are you crazy?" And I like to tell people, "No, I'm not crazy. I'm just not you." But what what what really spoke to me about this camp was um I had I probably had a little bit of a different life than maybe uh some of the other people you've interviewed, or some of like the motivational speakers and things like that you that you see uh you know, you hear their speech, you see them on YouTube. Man, they've had just loads of usually adversity hit them in in life, and have just gone through some traumatic experiences, whether that's, you know, dealing with cancer, let's say, or being deployed, or you know, you name it, right? There's lots of ways adversity can hit you. Well, I did uh basically a little soul searching in my early 30s, and just discovered that, man, I I haven't really had that. You know, whether that's luck of the draw, or whatever. And not that you want that type of crap to to hit you, but you you know with life like it's only it's just a matter of when things are going to hit you in the face. And You know what I came to the conclusion was, Jimmy? Is that my life um had been a little bit too easy. You know? Real Really, I'll just go out there and say it. Like, I was too comfortable. And And uh comfort can be a slow death, so what I was really looking to do is was shake it up and really see what I was made of. Cuz I had never put myself purposely into a situation where I would be pushed, you know, past my brink physically, mentally, emotionally, to really see, you know, what my character is and who I was. And um you know, a lot of times, we can look at ourselves in the mirror getting ready uh to go to work, or go to school, or whatever it is you're doing, and we can tell ourselves lies, lies after lies after lies, about like what what we are, who what we look like. But I just I just wanted to get real, and and really just strip all that crap away and see what was there. So that's why I chose that camp, man. Was it was um It wasn't just a beat-down camp. Yes, there were beat-downs for sure, no question. And I broke several times. But the cadre there, the coaches, were uh just the most professional, and they taught me different tools and tactics to get through different moments. And, man, that's just something that I've um I have not forgotten. In fact, I wrote a book on it,
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: because I wanted people to learn those tools and tricks without having to get beat down for 50 hours straight. And then, I show people how to apply that to everyday life, man. So um So, there you go. That's the big answers to the question, the multiple questions you put in there. And I'm sure we can dig in to a lot of individual things here.
Jimmy: Absolutely. When I think about our earlier conversations, and some of the parallels that are drawn between what you went through with Kokoro Camp, and and what I went through in British Army officer training, there's some very strong leadership parallels. I want to start there, because our listeners are senior leaders who are looking for that performance edge. And often, we look outside to, "How can I dial up the team KPIs?" Or, "How can I increase the pressure on the team?" Or, "How can we launch a new product, or create a new service?" Or it's always an external factor. But I think what you're talking about here is much more of, you've got to go inside first, right? You've got to look in the mirror first. You came from a corporate, traditional, middle-class, working life, and and you had, essentially, you know, as you said, a very comfortable life. What was that moment where you said, "I am too comfortable." And why did you just choose to go and do the hardest thing? What What was it that led you to that, "I'm comfortable, and I need to do something different. I need to prove myself. I need to go and get into the the hardest potential training in the world." What was What were you looking for?
Brad: Yeah, it's funny you mention that uh sort of man in the mirror person in the mirror moment, you know, uh cuz it's obviously not just for not men. Women, obviously, have have these We all do. Col- Collective humanity. And I I literally had one, though. It and it was in my mid-30s. I'll never forget it. It It wasn't Nothing Here's the thing, man, it's like there wasn't one moment in my life that I could point to. It was just a collection of of just the years of of questions. And it was really It was truly driven internally, because I for years, I would struggle with that with those questions of, you know, "Who am I? What am I here to do?" You know, purpose. I know that gets thrown around a a a lot these days, but it's true. It's like, "Man, what is my mission? Like, what am I here on Earth to do? Is it to work this corporate job the rest of my life, so I can get a nice retirement, and then, you know, retire down in Florida, or or or something like that? Like, man, all that sounds nice, but uh there's got to be more to it." You know? And too often, um I find people identify themselves with with what their job is. You know? So and that that's a whole nother conversation.
Jimmy: Mhm. Absolutely.
Brad: We We We can go down. But I did, too, man. I like I I would identify myself with, you know If you were to ask like, "Who's Brad Ritter?" "Oh, oh, I work for XYZ company, and I do this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." It's like, "No, that's not really what I'm looking for. Like, who Deep down your Like, who are you? Are you a family person, or are you, you know, uh what do you What do you like? What do What don't you like?" Like, that type stuff. But anyway, back that back to that moment, I was in my early 30s getting ready to go to work, and those same questions popped up, man. And And I just You know what I did? I listened to them, and I got an intuitive hit, and I took a mental health day back before there was such a thing probably back then. Now it's quite popular, I totally believe in them.
Jimmy: It's trendy, yeah.
Brad: Uh but back then, you know, at least in the States, that was probably frowned upon, because it was very much, you know, the the rise and grind mentality. And we and we still have that um somewhat. But, my gosh, if you need to take time off just because of stress or whatever and, you know, quote, unquote, get your mind right, do it. Cuz that's what I did, man. I I listened to those voices, and instead of just dismissing them and going to work, I actually called in sick that day. And and I spent some time uh searching. I spent some time reading, and I went online, and I typed in those words like, you know, "purpose", "passion", you know, things like that. And um I read probably for a couple hours just all these different As you can imagine, there was no shortage of content that pops up on the inner webs when you type that stuff in. And I spent a couple hours just reading all kinds of posts, some blogs. And at the end of it,
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: I wasn't any closer to answering those questions. In fact, I was probably even more confused, cuz they would ask me more You know, those blogs were asking me questions I just couldn't answer. Man, these are deep questions, and and chances are you're not going to be able to answer those questions right away. It's going to take some time. Uh but what you'll find eventually is those those questions will be answered from within if you take the time to kind of kind of slow down and really start listening. So, um knowing that, I I am a big fan of video. Like, I use YouTube all the time to figure out how to, you know, work on my garage door, or you you know, you name it. So, I'm all the time on YouTube. So, I thought, "You know what? I'll go on YouTube and see if there's a cool video." And uh luckily for me, there was. So, I typed in um "purpose", and up pops a TED Talk that literally changed the trajectory of my life.
Jimmy: Wow.
Brad: So, this was kind of like my moment, right? And the And I'll never forget it. It was a TED Talk delivered by a lady by the name of Angela Duckworth, and she wrote a book called Grit.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: I'm like, "Grit? What is it?" So, you know, Angela says it's grit's the power of passion and perseverance to achieve a long-term goal. And in her studies, you know, many years of studies, uh interviewing thousands and thousands of people from all different walks of life, from uh inner-city school teachers, to, you know, high-stress sales jobs, to military uh personnel, the leading um indicator and predictor of success in life was grit.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: And I was like, "Okay, I'm I'm on to something here." Right? So, I bought her book, read it front to back, and, basically, grit can be grown, which is amazing. It's not a fixed thing. It's not like, "Okay, you're born and you've only got this so much grit." No, it it it can be grown. You can also lose it, but you can absolutely be grown.
Jimmy: Like fitness, right? Like a muscle.
Brad: Like fitness, absolutely. It's consistency over time. And and uh you can grow it from the inside out, and you can grow it from the outside in. Growing it from the inside out is more um what I would say, you know, um self-help, that type stuff. She goes on to say it's a combination of like interest, hope, deliberate practice, and there's one other thing. But um you could also grow it from the outside in, which was eliciting the help of like a coach, a mentor, or putting yourself in an immersive uh experience, let's say, that's going to shape you, form you. Like, I'm sure you went through boot camp, or, you know, whatever version of boot camp with your service. See, I never did, cuz I'm a civilian. But I but I often, having a lot of buddies in the military, I often wondered like, "Could I have done that?" Or like, "What would that have been like, that that shock to the system, so to speak?"
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: So, I knew that's what I that's what I wanted. I wanted to find uh what I now call a School of Grit that I could go to that could that could, you know, unlock my potential through that purposeful adversity. So, I go back on to uh YouTube, and I type in um "world's toughest civilian training", and up pops Kokoro Camp, which
Jimmy: So you went for like the hardest one straight out the bat.
Brad: I did. I just I And that's how I'm wired, man, is you could ask my wife. It's once I once I get something in my head, like I'm jumping in with both feet. Like, it's it's zero to 100. Once Once I'm bought into something, and that might take a while, but like if I'm if I believe it and I'm in, like then I'm in, you know? And I'm going all out.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Brad: It's the same thing with, you know, your job, or your your kids, what whatever, you know what I mean? And and uh yeah, so up pops this camp.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: And it's uh put on by a gentleman by the name of uh Mark Divine. He's a retired Navy SEAL. I think he had about 20 years in. And he runs uh two companies. One's called SEALFIT, the other is called Unbeatable Mind. And the video, I'll never forget this either, if if the TED Talk sort of changed my trajectory, this video probably changed my life, because it got me to attend the camp, and I wouldn't be here talking to you had I not done that. I can retrace it all the way back to there. So So, Mark's addressing uh a class that's about to go through um Kokoro Camp, which is modeled after Navy SEAL Hell Week. And if you don't know anything about um the Navy SEALs, or how they train, uh they go through a program called BUD/S, which stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL. Every Every one of them has to go through it. And inside of that six months, there's something called Hell Week, where they're literally up about a week with no sleep. They do get fed, but it's just constant, you know, physical, mental, emotional, let's just call it torture, cuz that's what it looks like to me
Jimmy: Yeah.
Brad: on the video. And they're and they're wanting
Jimmy: "Potentia discovery", I think we call it.
Brad: Right. Yeah, a- and their job, like, they're not there to like teach you during that time, they're there to weed you out. So, if if there's 200 dudes that show up, and they're at peak physical condition. I mean, I'm talking Olympic athletes, professional athletes, you name it, out of 200, they may get 30 that last at the end of six months.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: And I knew this just from studying, and I thought, "Man, what those 30 that stay, what do they have over over the others?" And it's it's it's mental toughness, it's emotional resiliency, it's really the six inches between your ears that we all have, you know, our brains. How we think. Metacognition, inner dialogue, all that good stuff. So, Mark is uh He's addressing this class, and he looks out this class and and everybody's they're formed up, they have no idea what's about to happen to them. Only he does and the rest of the cadre. And And he says, "Rejoice in adversity. Rejoice in adversity. How do we grow as human beings? It's through adversity. Warriors seek out the severest of schools in order to forge their character. Welcome to the severest of schools." And, man, when I when I heard that and saw that, I got I still get goosebumps. I had goosebumps, and uh the hair just rose on I on the back of my neck, and I thought, "I got to I got to go there. Like, I I don't know I have a hard time explaining exactly why, but I just know it's going to be so transformational for me. And I feel like I'm going to really find out who I am, and be able to answer that question, you know, eventually."
Jimmy: It sounds like you did find out, right? It sounds like you did find out.
Brad: I did I did find it, man. That's That's why I'm here. That's That's That's what I'm doing, you know, right now. That's part of my my mission and all that is is what I'm doing with uh with School of Grit. But it would never would have happened, had I not took a giant leap of faith and and and and and put, you know, put all your chips in, went all in, trained my butt off for it, dedicated my life to passing it. And and that was the result, you know? None of this None of I would, like I said, I would not be here talking to you right now had it not been for that one simple decision to say, "Yeah, you know what? Um I am going to listen to my gut for once. And I'm going to I'm going to start searching for for some of these answers."
Jimmy: Uh thank- And thank you for sharing the story, because it is, you know It's fascinating to me that you, as a civilian, chose to put yourself through that. And, obviously, not every listener is going to go and sign up for a a SEAL experience, or a SEAL-like experience. But there are some great lessons to be had for putting yourself outside your comfort zone, and there's something- I know we talked about this previously. In the explore chapter of of the book we've got coming out, it's about you've got to get outside your comfort zone, you've got to try new things, you've got to be curious. There's a great formula in the book, Peak Performance, which talks about stress plus rest equals growth. And so it's that whole stretch your comfort zone so your comfort zone becomes bigger by doing things that put you outside your comfort zone. This was obviously yours was the extreme version. But I was wondering, can you give us an example of a moment during that experience where you were probably ready to call it a day, you were probably ready to quit, and you kept going because you wanted the growth that came from it. You kept going because you wanted to realize what your potential was beyond the standard stressors that most leaders face on a daily basis: you know, too many meetings, too many emails, whatever it was. You were at a different level of inner grit. Could you tell us a story about where you found yourself in that moment, and what you did?
Brad: Yeah, I mean, the first time I wanted to quit was literally within the first hour. No joke. And I knew what was coming, too.
Jimmy: Yeah.
Brad: And to equate this to, you know, work, a lot of times, we know like, "Okay, this big meeting's company coming, this big speech, this this whatever." You know? So, we can prepare for it. And if you don't prepare accordingly, well, that's your own fault, you know? I mean, joke's on you. So, I knew within the I knew the first two hours, there was going to be an evolution called uh breakout, or a shark attack, maybe, as they're also commonly known. And what that entails is all the cadre, all the coaches come down from the stairs, and they surround the group. And then, all of a sudden, what happens? Just pure chaos is what happens. Someone's on a megaphone trying to give instructions. People are in your face yelling, screaming. They're hosing you down. You know, they're making you do every calisthenic you can possibly dream up. And they're they're They're basically smoking you, and trying to get you so disoriented that you don't know what's going on, and it works. It's super effective. And I'll never forget it, cuz it was July, the sun was beating down, it was probably like 85°. I did mess up. I If I had it to do over, I would not have had coffee that morning, cuz it dehydrated me. I would have hydrated myself with water. I was so thirsty, man. Like, uh about an hour into it, I'm just I'm I'm done, right? I can't go any harder. And I'm thinking to myself, "Holy crap. I've spent, you know, the last six months of my life training for this. This This experience's 50 hours. I can't even make it through the first hour, but let alone that, like, if this first hour is this, like how am I going to do this for 49 more hours? Like, it's impossible. It's impossible. There's There's no way." And And that's when the doubts started creeping in, man. And I literally thought about quitting. I was like, "Well, you know, it was it was a good it was a good fight, right? Like, I I gave it all in my head." But to your point, that's one of the things that kept me going, was like, "No, I'm in this for the long haul. I knew this would happen. What do I need to do?" And um there was two things that really got me through that point. One was going back to my "why", the the reason why I was doing it.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: Um and my "why" at that time, which is I still have this "why" with me today, was to uh be the best version of myself, so I could show up and be the best uh father, and um husband, and friend, brother, I can possibly be. So, a lot of that that was intrinsically motivating for my family. And then, the other the other thing that got me through was And we can talk about this later. They teach what they call the Big 4 of Mental Toughness, and cuz mental toughness can be taught. And one of those components is proper goal setting.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: What do I mean by that? Well, in this particular situation, if I would have focused on the the finish line with that chatter in my in in my mind of, "Holy crap, there's no way I can last another 49 hours. I'm barely making it through this hour." I would have crumbled.
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: But instead, I turned that inner dialogue into, "All right, I'm just going to make it past this next these next 10 push-ups that they're asking me to do. Or I'm going to make it past-" You know, you you take that big goal, and you chop it down into smaller, manageable chunks. And what that does is, um for one, it makes it way more believable for you that you're actually going to do it. But then, it actually gives you some positivity, man, cuz it's like, you set a little goal, you achieve it. Boom, you got that. Now you set that next little goal. Cool. Now I'm going to crawl over here. Now I'm going to do And now, you're you're you're building up your habit stacking, um reaching reaching little minigoals in order to get your in in order to get your big one. So, uh yeah, that's the the the very first time I thought about quitting was like the very first hour, man. No No joke. And I looked over after that particular evolution was done, it probably lasted about two hours. So, just think about two hours of doing every calisthenic you could possibly ever dream of, no food, no water, uh people yelling, screaming at you, and you'll have an idea of what that felt like. And there was uh about 50 of us that that reported. Guess what happened after two hours? We had already lost I think five to seven people.
Jimmy: 25 had gone.
Brad: Yeah, not not quite 20- not yet. There There will be. There would be that number, cuz um there's only about 25 of us that uh that lasted. And uh but I looked over, and I I didn't even realize other people had had already thrown in the towel, cuz I was just so focused in on what I was doing and not what the what the other team was doing. So.
Jimmy: There are some great lessons in there. And so many similarities in in the things we talk about. One of the things that came up for me there was your motivation actua- activation reward cycle. So sometimes, yeah, when we we set these gigantic performance goals: "I need to last 50 hours," "We need to make $10 million," whatever it is that the performance goal that your team is going for,
Brad: Right.
Jimmy: it can seem really hard. If, especially if you're tired and burned out, which a lot of people are right now, it can seem really hard to get motivated, and to do that. But actually, if we hack the cycle, and just start doing small things, focus on the smaller, achievable, it we get a bit of reward momentum. We do something small, we get a good hit from dopamine, "I achieved something. I'm ready to take on the next bigger thing." And that chunking down into smaller pieces, I really like that concept from a strategic implementation of performance, but also from a personal implementation of grit and resilience, especially when people are dealing with burnout. It's like, "I don't have to get through this year. I just need to get through this meeting and do a good job in this meeting. And I just need to make sure I do a good job on this email. I need to just make sure this one-on-one that I have, I show up and be the best leader I can possibly be." And I really like that idea of, "I just have to get through this next bit, and then focus on the next bit." It's because we can become, as senior leaders, we can become obsessed on the long-term stuff, but actually, it's about the now, right? It's the presence of mind.
Brad: Yes.
Jimmy: It's the inner resilience.
Brad: Yeah, 100%. It's very easy to get caught up on on that end goal, whatever it is, whether it's, you know, bringing in $100 million or launching that new product or whatever. But it's it's literally it's the little things that aren't so little. But it's those little things that you can do every day that, man, they just they get you to where you need to be at the end of the day, but you've got to keep that discipline and not look past doing it, and and uh and and not rest on your laurels either, you know? Like, keep keep pushing. And then, constantly um you know, if you're part of a team, constantly checking in with your team, too, just to see how they're doing, so on and so forth. I mean, that's something I'm sure we we're going to talk about, as well, but uh Kokoro Camp is not a It's not designed to be like Rambo, where it's like they're selecting like one person or something like that to make it through. No, it's not that at all. It It's definitely a team event. Like, you will not get through that weekend without working as a team, and that is super important in it with with today, and performance of companies and and so on and so forth. Cuz, I mean, like it or not, you're on a team, you know? You've got a team you work with, you've got someone you report to, you're all you're all part of the team. So, you've got to make sure everybody's uh sort of carrying their weight.
Jimmy: It's fascinating. I did a lot of research on the Navy SEALs when I was writing the book, and they said the difference between the teams that get through BUD/S and SEAL training are the ones that aren't successful are a group of high-performing individuals. The ones that are successful are like a murmuration of birds. You know when you see like birds in the sky, and they're all kind of moving as like this liquid unit around each other, and when when one moves, the rest move to compensate. And when one drops, the rest drop to pick to sort of know to be with them, so they avoid the threat of predators. And so there was this beautiful, kind of organic resilience in the team, the concept of the team.
Brad: Mhm.
Jimmy: And I want to go there next. I want to go in toward the idea of performance coming from you as a leader not doing it on your own. Actually, you're doing it as part of an organic murmuration of birds. You're doing this a flock. What did you pick up while you were going through Camp Kokoro that made you maybe it was an insight, or maybe it was a validation of what you already realized, that this was something we're going to have to get through together, and the real grit almost comes from the collectivism that we're doing it together? Performance comes from doing it together.
Brad: Yeah, they had this evolution called log PT, which you may be familiar with, but uh you think think Yeah, oh yeah, okay. So, you know exactly where I'm going. But imagine like a telephone pole that weighs, I don't know, 300 lb on up, and you've got your team of, you know, five to six people, and you got to hoist this telephone pole up. And then, they're going to ask you to go up over your head, go it from shoulder to shoulder. It's the ultimate um teamwork experience, because if someone's not pulling their weight, or if someone's out of sync, you all are going to suffer, and it's going to it's going to be terrible. However, if you are acting as a team and you're synchronous like those birds you were talking about, it can be the easiest evolution ever. You could go all day on it. But all it takes is for one person not to contribute, and and and whatnot. So, we were doing log PT, it was kicking our butts, as you as you can imagine, and um what they did was they took the uh best-performing team, we were right in the middle, but we they took the best-performing team and the worst-performing team, and they switched the leaders out. So, the leader from, quote, unquote, the worst team went to the best team, and then uh the best team's leader went to the worst team. What do you think happened?
Jimmy: I can imagine that the team performance started to shift.
Brad: Team performance shifted. The best team slowly started not doing so well. The worst team, that that good leader brought them up. And that was to illustrate that at least in this scenario, there are no bad teams, only bad leaders. So, you know, how does that transfer to um, you know, where you might be working? And, granted, it could depend. I get it. But chances are, if you got hired, it was probably a regular a rigorous hiring process. You had to go through several steps, several interviews, and all that, so you were good enough to, quote, unquote, make the cut. Uh cuz they try not to let they try to get rid of the people that they don't think are going to be successful. And not that some people can't slide through, I get it. But it really is leadership and and and truly leading people. So, you leaders out there, if you're in those positions, and you you know, your culture sucks, or you know, you're like, "Damn, I'm on a bad team. Why is that?" Look in the mirror, like we talked about at the beginning. That starts with you. I've been there, too. We're We're Those are some tough conversations, but that's where you just got to check your ego and try some different things. If what you've been doing isn't working, that's the worst thing you can do, is just keep on plugging along and with your head down in the sand, you know?
Jimmy: What are some of the questions that you would recommend leaders ask themselves if they're not seeing their team perform that are those looking in the mirror questions? What would you recommend the questions be?
Brad: I think a really good question that just popped in my head when you asked me that is, would my team follow me if I didn't have a leadership title? Cuz you don't have to have a title to be a leader. And likewise, I know a lot, or I've worked with leaders who had the, quote, unquote, leadership title, but they weren't very good at motivating,
Jimmy: Mhm.
Brad: at getting at getting people Yeah.
Jimmy: We We We I feel like our lives are overlapping. We talked about this last week in our mastermind, um the difference between positional power and personal power, and the fact that, yeah, leadership is a mindset, not a job title.
Brad: Mhm. Ab- Absolutely, man. Absolutely. And And, I mean, that's something I see a lot um like I mean, I worked many, many years in big corporate America, and uh you know, lots of management positions, whether it was senior-level, middle manager, whatever. That was one thing I felt that just lacked, though. There wasn't a lot of training on how to lead, how to lead teams. Cuz that's ultimately that's what it is, is you've got a mission, you've got your goal for your team. Well, now you got to you got to get your um your team to follow you. Well, that a lot of that starts with trust. They're not going to follow you if they don't trust you. So then, that's the other Like, "Man, how do you build trust?" And, like, I guess guess what? It's not it's not easy, and it's going to take some time. But I would definitely want an an an open-door quote environment where people could come to me with anything, and they know I'm not just going to, quote, unquote, get them in trouble, or have the have the uh spotlight put on them. You know what I mean? That's what you need.
Jimmy: Mhm. So if we go back to our our log example with this extreme performance requirement, and you switch the leaders out, and all of a sudden, the the bad team starts to become a good team, because the leader is different. That leader isn't some superhuman who is manually lifting the log themselves, right? They're doing different things.
Brad: Yep. Yep, they're doing different things. Yep, they're telling people to switch out if they need to on on different sides of the log, cuz maybe If you haven't done this, height's a consid- consideration. So, if you're not all of similar height, well, if I'm super tall and someone's super short, there's a problem. So, you're going to have to, you know, make someone go up towards the front of the log, push them towards the back. And that's what a leader does. That's what a leader should do, is be able to take yourself out of that little scoped tunnel vision, and say, "Okay, I need to move some people around, and then we'll be able to handle this a little bit better." Yeah.
Jimmy: And it's that difference between doing the task and supporting the people to do the tasks. It's It's that It's that shift out of, "I have to be the one who is in charge of everything, has all the answers, solves all the problems." And, you know, the log analogy is great, but it could be, you know, "Finish this project." It could be, "Run this meeting." It could be, "Execute this piece of the strategy." Your job as the leader is not to to do all that stuff. Your job is to be like the conductor of an orchestra, or as you say, to be the person who's standing back from the log saying, "Hey, let's shift a few people around, and if we try this, and how can I help you, and what needs to happen here so we can all get through this together?"
Brad: And I always appreciate a leader who because you I mean, you have to delegate as a leader, or I mean, at least you should. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's what you have a good team for. But I always appreciate a leader who would also get their hands dirty uh when the time came. You know what I mean? Sort of like get in the trenches with your employees. You know, I I've seen the other end of that where it's like you you almost wonder like, "What do they do all day? Or do they just tell people what to do?" You know what I mean? I see you're shaking your head, so I know you've had some experience with that.
Jimmy: Yeah, no, I And I think it depends on the level of seniority of leader that you are. If you're a frontline manager, you probably have a a fair balance of delivery of task versus supporting your team to deliver. If you're a C-suite person, your task list is different, right? You're focused on organizational structure, and how do we drive culture, and how do we support the business to create the performance that we want, how do we lead with the board alongside us. So, there's a different focus of tasks on the task list. But absolutely, you don't have to be the example of the hardest-working leader, you just need to be the leader that is showing that they are showing up.
Brad: Yeah, 100%. Yep, and if you're and if you're that C-suite leader, I mean, I encourage you to uh go work with one of those frontline reps, let's say, uh cuz you you will lose your perspective, especially if if you haven't done that job in a very, very long time. You know, cuz things change. Every year, things things change dramatically, so you you might you might have a skewed perception on, "Oh, well, this is how I did it when, you know, I was a rep 15 year-" Well, guess what? 15 years ago, a lot's a lot's changed. So, I encourage you to go out now and see how see how the customers have changed, see what the new trends are, see what the no- new competition looks like. That sort of thing. That's what I mean by getting getting dirty, especially for a for a C-suiter. Yep.
Jimmy: And, you know, as a leader, it's it's inspiring, right?
Brad: It's It's inspiring. I mean, people want to see that, you know? And um and always listen to uh always lis- listen to the person on the ground, is what I'm trying to say. So, you know, if you've got this strategy you've spent many months on working on, and you get more than one report from like the people down in the trenches saying, "Hey, this isn't going to work, and this is why." You should probably listen to them. Yep, you should listen to them. And if that means scrapping your plan, so be it. Pivot. You're going to get It's the It's the basis of operational performance improvement, right? We If we go back to sort of the the Lean Six Sigma stuff, go to the gemba, go to the place where the work is done. Ask the person who is working on that conveyor belt, ask the person who's going into those sales meetings, ask the person who is doing the manual work, "How could we make this better?" Because yeah, you as a as a senior leader might not necessarily have the context or the detail that's driving all of the performance results up through the business.
Brad: Exactly.
Jimmy: Brad, I honestly, I could talk to you for hours on this stuff. I'm I'm genuinely fascinated, and I'm sure other people would be interested to connect with you, as well. If people want to reach you and have a a longer conversation, if they want to find out more about the School of Grit, what's the best way to to reach you?
Brad: Yeah, just go to my website. It's probably the the easiest way. Just go to schoolofgrit.org, so that's .org, not .com, cuz I don't own that domain. But just go to schoolofgrit.org, you'll find all my contact information is on there. If you want to drop me an email, it's [email protected]. I respond to all my emails, so that's that's the easiest way. And then, I'm on social media as well, so feel free to direct message me. Love to help you out and support you.
Jimmy: We'll pop all those links in the show notes, so people can can find it as well. If you were to leave our listeners with one lesson that you picked up at Camp Kokoro, or that you've learned as a result of your work with the School of Grit now, what would be that takeaway lesson that you would encourage leaders to focus on if they want to get that performance edge?
Brad: Yeah, I'll tell you a lesson that was passed down to me with the very first person I interacted with at at Kokoro Camp. We had a senior uh Navy SEAL, he was actually active at the time, I won't mention his name, but he came, and um he told us, "You You will be successful if you can do these three things and these three things right." And I'm thinking, "Oh, man. I better write this down, it's so important." It's so simple, and I use it everyday, so I encourage you to internalize this: breathe, think, and execute. So, by breathing, you give yourself a little bit of time to formulate a good response instead of a reaction, let's say. Breathing also helps to uh calm yourself down, lower your heart rate, all that good stuff. So, you know, the next time you're in a big high-stakes meeting with a customer, you're talking to your boss about a raise, you know, that type thing. So, breathe, I want you to think. So, by breathing, you're going to allow yourself some time to think, you're going to think of a good, an appropriate response, instead of having an a knee-jerk reaction. And then, execute. Do it. Take massive action. Do what it is that you just thought of. So, breathe, think, and execute, and you'll be successful. Pretty easy, huh?
Jimmy: Simple. It sounds super simple.
Brad: And it works, man. It's so simple, especially if you got kids out there. I I encourage all parents to try that when they're spilling food or doing whatever. Like, I'm going to think I'm going to breathe, I'm going to think, and I'm not going to explode on them.
Jimmy: Brad, thank you so much for joining us on the show. I genuinely appreciate your time and wisdom, and I'm sure that we're going to have future conversations in a whole lot of other angles, because there's so many things we I think we overlap, and we think the same about performance and how you can reach those next-level performance goals that you're thinking about as a as a senior leader in the organization.
Brad: For sure.
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