Growing Leaders founder Dr. Tim Elmore is passionate about understanding the emerging generation and helping adults teach them how to become leaders in their schools, their communities and their careers.

As a youth leadership expert and thought leader in his field, he educates adults to help them understand the challenges and experiences today’s generation faces and connect with them in a way that resonates. Dr. Elmore believes, by cultivating leadership abilities in young adults and encouraging the adults who guide them, Growing Leaders can be the catalyst for emerging generations that will truly change the world.

Dr. Tim Elmore teaches leadership courses and speaks at schools, universities, business, and athletic programs. He has trained thousands of leaders in partnership with nationally renowned schools and organizations like the San Francisco Giants, Home Depot, Stanford University, Virginia Tech, University of Alabama Athletics, Duke University, University of Texas, Chick-fil-a, Cici’s Pizza, Delta, and more.

Dr. Elmore has also authored more than 30 books including: Habitudes®: Images that Form Leadership Habits and Attitudes, Artificial Maturity: Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults, Generation iY: Secrets to Connecting With Today’s Teens & Young Adults in the Digital Age, 12 Huge Mistakes Parents Can Avoid, Life Giving Mentors, and Nurturing the Leader Within Your Child.

Dr. Tim and Stuart have a candid, fun and interesting discussion about grit and what you as a next generation leader should consider when choosing passion over distraction.

( An excerpt from the Growing Leaders blog )

I remember a story recently, which has a relevant application to the season we’re in today. If you’ve followed professional boxing over the last century, you know the name, Jack Dempsey. Jack was the heavyweight champion of the world for seven years.

But do you know the name of the guy who beat him?

Probably not. He was a nobody by the name of Gene Tunney. Gene had set a goal as a young man that he wanted to be a professional boxer—until he faced a setback during his military service. Gene broke all of the fingers in both of his hands. His trainer and his doctor both told him he’d have to give up boxing. His brittle bones would not allow it.

Gene had a decision in front of him.

Interestingly, Tunney decided he would not give up his goal of being a boxer. In fact, he wanted to be the heavyweight champion of the world. He just changed his methods of preparation. Gene began to learn the art of self-defense, which allowed him to use a different part of his hand for his craft. He learned to run backward, knowing that facing Jack Dempsey he’d have to run backwards a few rounds. He completely changed the way he approached his goal.

And when Gene Tunney finally got his chance to take on Jack Dempsey, he whipped him. It shocked everyone. It so humiliated Jack Dempsey, that Dempsey challenged Tunney to a rematch. Tunney beat him a second time. He was no fluke.

Now here’s the truth I want you to catch.

Fistic experts, who understand boxing, tell us something intriguing. They estimate there is no way that Gene Tunney could have beaten Jack Dempsey for the heavyweight crown had he not broken all the fingers in both of his hands. No one at the time could go head to head and toe to toe with Dempsey and survive. It was the very setback (even tragedy) Tunney faced that launched him toward his goal.

His setback actually enabled him to come back better.

Gene practiced three responses, which empowered him to go further than he expected when he faced a setback, which he leveraged to propel him toward his original goal:

1. Continue

First, he decided to not give up on his original goal. He continued pushing forward.

2. Adapt

Second, he adapted how he chased his goal. He kept his mission but changed his methods.

3. Reverse

Third, he took the very problem that could’ve shut him down and used it to send him on.

I’m not sure how your different, adverse circumstance may have felt like a setback. But what if you took the very item you saw as a disadvantage and reversed it, making it an advantage? What if this time out during the coronavirus could be leveraged to move you further faster?

Mental toughness is like a muscle. It needs to be worked to grow and develop.

Choose to do the tenth rep when it would be easier to just do nine. Choose to create when it would be easier to consume. Choose to ask the extra question when it would be easier to accept. Prove to yourself—in a thousand tiny ways— that you do have what it takes to conquer a mountain. Too frequently, we think grit is about how we respond to extreme situations, but what about common circumstances? The best way to develop mental strength is to slowly build gritty steps into your routines, little by little. Then add a step each week.

Grit isn’t about getting an incredible dose of inspiration. It’s about building the daily habits that allow you to stick to a schedule and overcome challenges and distractions—over and over and over again. Don’t wait for motivation to sneak up on you. Mentally tough people don’t have to be more talented or more intelligent—just more consistent. Grit comes down to your habits. It’s about doing the things you know you’re supposed to do on a more consistent basis. It’s about your dedication to daily practice and your ability to stick to a schedule.

Gene Tunney proved to everyone what mental toughness can do. Will you?

INFLUNSR. defines grit as choosing passion over distraction.

Philippians 4:8 says “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” If grit depends on muscle memory and not motivation, how and why does what Paul writes here so important to your grit development? We will talk about this at length in the Circle. Go ahead and spend some time journaling your thoughts.