What a Rainy Bike Ride Taught Me About Leadership and Grit

Hey, everyone. Joan, here again, you know, last week, I left a message here on this platform about this whole notion of grinding at work, or can we keep doing what we're doing in order to achieve what we're trying to get to the same way and get different results. Basically, I was talking about like, how do we show up with this baseline level of tension, you know, of what's happening, not only in the country, but what's happening at work, and all the changes there, and possibly what we're dealing with at home, and yet have strike this inner balance and still perform like, how do you do that? There's these tension that that lives there. And I'm reminded, I actually went on a bike ride in the morning yesterday, and in Northern California, it's a kind of cloudy. We're going through a little rain season here, and so the ride was a little gloomy. It was cold, and I just come off of working out over the weekend, some strength training in my legs. So my legs were a little fried, and I'm out there riding. And for those in the Bay Area kind of know the area here in the East Bay, the Danville Alamo Walnut Creek area. It's a good cycling area, and so it's cold and it's rainy, and my glasses are all kind of fogging up and got drips on them, and I'm thinking, I'm so tired. And have you ever felt when you go to work in the morning, if it's Monday morning and you start out tired. I know that feeling. So I'm on the ride, and we're going up Sycamore road, and I'm headed towards a town called Black Hawk. And in Black Hawk, you can go a myriad of different ways. You can climb up to Mount Diablo, or you can go to another route and go down towards Dublin. And so as I'm going up Sycamore road, the It's gloomy out, and I'm thinking to myself, This feels like a grind. And boy, I don't want to be here. And boy, the pack, my partner that I was riding with, is pulling away, and how can I keep up? And I just remembered, all right, just one foot in front of the other. And boy, can I just want to get through this. I just want to get it to be oh, I want, I want it to be over. And we come up to Black Hawk, and I'm turning the corner, and we're going down towards Crow Canyon. We decide not to go up Mount Diablo. And all of a sudden, out of the blue, the sun comes out. The clouds part for briefly, and the sun was shining on me, and I thought, okay, I can do this. We can get through it, you know, one step at a time, and I'm glad I stayed in it. I'm glad I stayed in it because I felt joy. I knew I was there. My passion for cycling was there, and not just because the sun comes out, but rather that I had stayed in it even when it was hard, and I changed my perspective. I realized so often when we just about get to the place where we need to be, we're gripping on the edge of this cliff and feeling like I don't know that I can do this another day, and yet, just around the corner is the epiphany or the insight or the when you're not doing something and you're not thinking about the problem, there comes a solution. So I was so grateful for that, right? And it reminded me of the question that I want to leave you with today is, how will you get different results this coming year, as you're budgeting for 2026 and you're getting ready with the either shifting goals or a changed environment or team you're working with, or you're just taking a different job, like, how do you learn how to shift and do something different? And I will tell you, with the way that I coach in my company, backs us is that we take a very pragmatic one to one relationship. We take a take a look at the goals and your structures and your behaviors, and we go through it, and I deliver the tools for you so that you can do this on your own. It's not something where you're going to keep relying on people over time to have this structure and how you pivot and change and create new habits. So how will you do that? How is it going? I'd love to hear from you. DM me and I'll see you again next week. Take care. Bye.