Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Happy Stack Podcast, where we explore the science and strategies behind creating a happier, more fulfilling life. I'm Terianne Richards, and I partner with organizations to address the root causes of burnout, disengagement, and stress, equipping leaders and teams with the tools they need to thrive, both organizationally and personally. Each episode, we dive into practical habits, insights, and strategies to help high performers like you level up from the inside out. Let's get stacking.
[00:00:36] If you want to achieve something big, something truly fulfilling, it's not just about talent, luck, or even motivation. It's about grit. And grit isn't just perseverance. It's a powerful mix of passion, purpose, persistence, and perseverance that creates real, lasting success.
[00:00:59] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Happy Stack Podcast. I'm your host, Teriann Richards, and today I want to talk about something that has, well, quite frankly, has shaped my life, my career, and my resilience. Grit. This isn't just something I read about. It's something I've lived through.
[00:01:19] There was a time when I thought I had grit, but I was really just burning myself out, mistaking exhaustion for resilience. I had to learn the hard way that true grit isn't just about working harder. It's about working with intention. And if this resonates with you, I go even deeper on this. In my book, success Takes courage. But for now, let's break it down.
[00:01:45] I used to think grit was about not giving up. But through the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, through successes and failures, I learned that grit isn't just about perseverance. It's a combination of actually four separate things.
[00:02:01] So first it's passion. That's the fire that fuels you.
[00:02:06] Then there's purpose, the foundation that gives your passion meaning.
[00:02:12] Then there's perseverance. That's the ability to keep going when things get hard.
[00:02:18] And then there's persistence. It's the discipline to show up day after day, no matter what.
[00:02:27] I'm a big Oprah Winfrey fan. I don't know if you are, but I am. And so she once said that passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.
[00:02:41] So passion is what keeps you engaged, but passion alone isn't going to get you or me to where we want to go. It has to be anchored in something bigger.
[00:02:53] And, you know, when I think back, like, I didn't always know what my passion was, but when I look at my childhood, it's interesting because the clues were kind of already there. I can Remember being like five, six years old, recording myself talking, kind of like I'm doing right now, teaching or even singing. I would drive my bicycle and I had one of those old cassette recorders and I would record myself like I was a frickin celebrity, you know, about to sing on the next stage. When my friends played with Barbies, I didn't want to just play, I wanted to narrate the story, create the script. I was always leading and I was always storytelling. Fast forward to my teenage years. I was still talking. So much so that my report cards constantly said, great student, but needs to talk less.
[00:03:48] And what, I guess what I didn't realize at the time was this wasn't just a, I don't know, a personality quirk, it was my passion. I was born to communicate, to teach, to lead.
[00:04:03] It just took me a few years to see it.
[00:04:06] And that's the thing, sometimes our passions aren't something new, they're something we've sort of carried all along.
[00:04:15] And so I can't tell you how often I sit down with someone and they're like, but I don't know what I'm passionate about. And so there's some questions that I typically will go to. And it's, you know, what could you do for hours without feeling drained?
[00:04:31] What activities, when you do them, kind of make you lose the sense of time. Like you lose track of time.
[00:04:41] And when you think of yourself as a child, well, what did you love doing as a child before the world told you to be realistic?
[00:04:52] That typically, those questions typically start to bring you to a space where you find passion.
[00:05:02] And then there's purpose, the anchor that keeps you grounded. So if passion gives you energy, purpose gives you direction.
[00:05:12] So one of the biggest myths about purpose is it is that it just appears one day. Right? Right like that. Just one day you wake up and you're like, I know what my purpose is. I'm meant to do X.
[00:05:26] That's not how. I mean, maybe for some people. It certainly did not work that way for me. I think purpose is uncovered through action.
[00:05:38] So when I think about myself, I've been an entrepreneur for 21 plus years.
[00:05:45] I fell into entrepreneurship. For years I chased success in different industries. I started eight different businesses. A sign company, a real estate business, a marketing firm, a retail store. And in every single one, I was always the one teaching, hosting and connecting people. But I never saw it. I thought my purpose was to run a business, but really my purpose was in helping people learn, grow and lead. It literally took me eight businesses and 17 years to finally connect those dots. And that's what I want you to take away today.
[00:06:32] Your purpose is often right in front of you. It's in the things you naturally gravitate toward, the things that you do, even when you're not getting paid for them.
[00:06:45] So ask yourself, what impact do you want to have on the world?
[00:06:51] What problem do you care deeply about solving?
[00:06:55] And what is something that you would do even if you weren't getting paid for it? Then there's perseverance.
[00:07:02] Perseverance to me, is playing the long game. It's the ability to keep going even when you have not seen the results yet.
[00:07:12] So one of my favorite stories of perseverance is Jack Canfield. He's the author. I don't know why that word could not come in my brain fast enough. He is the creator, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
[00:07:28] I was given this book when I was like 12 or 13 years old. And by the time I was 20 years old, I had probably read just. I don't even know a lot of Chicken Soup for the Soul books. One of my favorite books of all time is actually by Jack Canfield. It is the Success Principles. It is a great book.
[00:07:48] Back to the point of this. So Jack Canfield was rejected 144 times before he got a yes.
[00:07:58] So imagine if he had quit at rejection number 143.
[00:08:04] The truth is for you and definitely for me, and I have oodles of stories that I could share about this. Most of us quit right before we succeed. And so when you're trying to build grit, it's important to like, having grit for all things is almost an impossibility. Right. There are certain things that I am not passionate about.
[00:08:30] I don't feel driven or purposely filled towards it. So the idea of persevering right when things are hard, when I haven't seen the results yet, I'm not gonna do it. You're not gonna do it. Which is why passion and purpose is so important. And this goes into everything. The relationship you have with your friends, your marriage you're in, the things that you want to achieve with your health or weight loss or blood pressure or da da da da da da. If it's not something that you can innately look into yourself and understand why. And I know some of my examples may not correlate specifically to this, but it's like if you're thinking about, well, how do I get to the other side? You need grit. Well, you need to find the reason to be Passionate. The reason to have purpose attached to it. And sometimes the line isn't straight, sometimes it's squiggly. So number three is you need to have perseverance. Well, how do you have perseverance? How do you do the things? How do you show up and do the hard thing over and over and over, even when you haven't seen the results yet? How do you get up every single morning and go to the gym even though the scale hasn't moved an inch yet? How do you get up every day and make the phone calls in your business even though you haven't made a sale yet? Well, number one is you need to detach from instant gratification. Real success is not built overnight. Anything worth having is worth working hard for, which means it takes time.
[00:10:05] The next thing is you need to reframe your failure as feedback.
[00:10:10] I think the thing that we get wrong is we have a goal in mind, but the how we're going to get there needs to be tweaked and iterated along the route. And so if I'm a soccer player and I know the goal is getting the soccer ball in the net, I'm going to go left, I'm going to go right. I have these other players that are getting in my way. The moment somebody stops the ball and gets it from me, I don't quit the game and go off to the sidelines. No, I figure out a new how. And I refrain that minuscule failure as feedback because every setback teaches you something.
[00:10:49] And then the next thing is you have to remind yourself of the long term vision. We have a goal. There is something that you want and you have to have the passion for it. And you need to feel purposely filled for it. But if you're gonna be persevering, you need to remind yourself that this is worth the work. It's worth the long journey, however that long may be.
[00:11:13] And then lastly, you need persistence.
[00:11:16] That's the daily commitment that you keep to yourself. It's about, like if, if perseverance is about the long game, persistence is about showing up every single freaking day.
[00:11:32] Because here's the truth. Motivation fades. You're not always gonna feel like doing the hard work. But grit is not about your feelings. It's about commitment. A few years ago, I actually, in 2020, I decided that I was going to do 75 hard. And if you're not familiar with what 75 hard is, it was created by a gentleman called Andy Friscilla. And the concept is you do two workouts a day, they have to be three hours apart. Both of them have to be 45 minutes. One of them has to be outdoors, regardless of the weather. You have to drink a gallon of water a day, read 10 pages in a self improvement or professional development book, follow a diet, no cheats, no alcohol. Take a progress picture a day. I might have missed something, but that is the gist of it. But you have to do it for 75 days straight. And so when I think about this, you're doing something every single day. You're keeping a commitment to yourself, and you have to do whatever that amount of things on that list is every single day. If you don't do one of them, even if you missed taking your progress picture, you got up and you drank your gallon of water and you ate healthy and followed the diet that you chose and you did the workouts and da, da, da, da, da. But you didn't take your freaking progress photo. Guess what? You failed. And you have to start from the beginning. And so again, when I think of grit, persistence is about showing up every single day and following your commitments. It's staying committed to you. And there's this saying that I use with my clients, and it's called the success Cadence. And it's, I said it, I did it, I said it, I did it, I said it, I did it. Where a lot of us, I think, fail in terms of staying the course is we say it, but we don't always do it right. We say we want to lose weight, we say we want our marriage to be amazing, we say we want to be amazing leaders, but we don't do the thing every single day to get us there. You know, there's the book Atomic Habits where, you know, it's all about James Clear, all about, you know, getting 1% better every single day. And if you did that every single day, I think the, the outcome is you improve by 37.5% over the year. And, and improvements have a compounding effect. So if I improve this year, that means next year I'm improving that much more because I'm improving upon something that's already been improved, but it requires a daily commitment to your goals. I said it, I did it, I said it, I did it, I said it, I did it. So how do you stay persistent? Well, if you set a goal, do the work, and don't set vague goals, set crystal clear goals and build habits, not just motivation, because the reality is there are going to be moments that you don't want to do. The thing will power fades, habits stick 75 hard was about building habits. It was about doing the thing every single day, regardless of whether or not you were tired or you didn't want to do it or you were busy or it was dark out or if there was a blistering snowstorm, it didn't matter. Build the habit, do the thing. And then the last thing I would say about building persistence is track your progress. Small wins build momentum. That is how you have that success cadence. Don't just wait for the end goal, which is, you know, finishing the 75 days. Every single day that you do the thing is a win. So it, you know, get excited, have an accountability partner, tell people about your goals and track your progress.
[00:15:11] So when you've built passion, you have purpose. You understand how to persevere. When it gets hard and you don't have the results you want yet. And you get that all that matters at the end of the day is that you show up every single day and you do the thing, you can be one step closer to actually fulfilling your own personal grit formula. So in closing, let me ask you this. Where in life do you need to build more grit? Is it in your business? Is it for you as a leader? Is it in your relationships? Your personal growth?
[00:15:44] If today's episode hit home for you, like I said, I dive deeper into this. In my book, success takes courage. And if it did resonate with you, do me a favor, share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. And until next time, stay strong, stay persistent, and keep building your grit. You've got this.
[00:16:06] Hey, thanks for listening to the Happy Stack podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little extra happiness in their life. Let's keep stacking those wins together. See you next time.
