From Grit to Greatness: Paving the Path to a Bright Future
By Jennelle McGrath
In business we hear all the time to have mental grit, stay persistent, and be positive.
It's like a mantra for all those in the trenches who are figuring out the next move. I, too, recite these with myself regularly. One of our core values is “grit with grace,” and it's embedded into our ethos.
But on a recent weekend trip with my son and husband, it made me realize these mantras are so much more than words but how we act and talk about them that makes an impact. It's one thing to say “stay positive” but another to live “staying positive.”
So here’s how the day unraveled. Let me paint the picture. Beautiful sunny day, 80 degrees, blue sky over the holiday long weekend. We took our bikes to a rail trail and biked for 12 miles, passing incredible marshes and tidal waters. Packed up the bikes to head home, and on the way, we got a flat tire.
Just like in business, everything is going on track, and then something unexpected happens and throws you into a loop. We were able to pull off the road and call AAA; they said in 1 hour, we’ll be there. Great- reasonable! Still feeling positive. Hour one passes, and they send a text, “Sorry, we’re experiencing high call volume; we’ll let you know when we will be there.” I'm still feeling optimistic. But as hours two, three, four, and five passed well, it could have started to fade.
If anyone has ever been in a closed car with a 6-year-old for hours… well, you get my drift. All that energy is trapped in one place for too long. I think a lot about mental grit and positivity in general. How do people in business turn out the way they do, how do they find strength in such difficult situations and grow organizations from nothing into thriving communities? In my opinion, it starts with perspective. Perspective gives someone the ability to determine good or bad and make a choice based on their viewpoint.
If anyone has ever been in a closed car with a 6-year-old for hours… well, you get my drift. All that energy is trapped in one place for too long. I think a lot about mental grit and positivity in general. How do people in business turn out the way they do, how do they find strength in such difficult situations and grow organizations from nothing into thriving communities? In my opinion, it starts with perspective. Perspective gives someone the ability to determine good or bad and make a choice based on their viewpoint.
So in life and in business, you need to find the rainbows from the rain. What did that mean for us? Well, we got to eat out and have a car picnic from one of our favorite restaurants, endless I Spy games, spend extra time with family and we got to have a parking lot dance-off party. We framed it as “ if we didn’t get a flat tire we wouldn’t have been able to…..[insert positive]” It would have been easy to say, UGH flat tire, this is the worst, and complain about it for five hours, but we didn’t, and you shouldn’t either. Find the positives no matter how small the wins are. We were lucky we were able to get someplace safe, we were only about 40 minutes from home (not across the country), we had AAA for help, we got takeout, we had a family member close enough to pick our bikes up on hour four, and they didn’t have to change the flat tire in the monsoon of rain that later ensued.
If in your business you’re struggling, everyone does, just like at some point, everyone who has a car will get a flat tire. But how you handle those flat tires flexes a mental muscle and trains it that this, too will pass. Find even the smallest positive and focus on that. Instead of “I had this horrible thing happen to me,” frame it as an opportunity. Negative energy feeds negative energy the same way positive energy feeds positive energy.
Here’s an example. If you lost a client, frame it as I get to learn how to do better next time, service better, find a better-fit client, or spend time working on the business. Each misstep leads to a new viewpoint you would not have had the good fortune to experience. In our business, we’ve hit many missteps. We get asked in interviews all the time, “What would you do differently if you could do it all again?” my answer is always the same, “nothing.” I would change nothing, not one single struggle.
I fully embrace and am grateful because each one of those has led to something far greater than I could have ever imagined. I don’t think it is due to luck. I think it is about perspective. The perspective that every uncomfortable situation gives you an opportunity to grow as a business leader, a mother, a sister, a wife and a human being. So stay the course give those “UGH” moments a big hug, and thank them because you never know how it will change your life in a positive way.
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