“Quit focusing on all the things you can’t control. Focus on being the best version of yourself. Work as hard as you can. If you’re only going to get one rep, do it perfectly.” Those are just a few of the lessons that Tom Brady recalls learning from Greg Harden at the University of Michigan.
Greg Harden worked at the University of Michigan Athletic Department for more than three decades, most recently as the Executive Associate Athletic Director, Student Athlete Health & Welfare. During his celebrated tenure (60 Minutes Sports called him “Michigan’s Secret Weapon”), he counseled, motivated, and coached some of the most celebrated athletes in the world, including Tom Brady, Michael Phelps, and Desmond Howard.
I recently spoke with Harden about his new book, Stay Sane In An Insane World, to learn how those of us without world-class natural talent can tap into some of the Brady and Phelps magic.
“I am preaching to give 100 percent, 100 percent of the time in everything you do,” he told me. “Now, I’m not crazy, I know that’s totally unrealistic. No one can give 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. But if giving 100 percent is my default mode, if giving 100 percent is my mindset, my worst day is going to be better than the average person’s best day.”
Now, exhorting people to give 100 percent in a business world bedeviled by quiet quitting, blatant quitting, back-to-the-office debates, etc., might seem like tilting at windmills. But learning to give 100 percent might be one of the best antidotes to workplace stress and strife. “The greatest competition you’re ever going to face,” he says, “is yourself. If you can take yourself on and be better than you were yesterday, you can take on anybody.”
But how can someone who’s frustrated at work or dislikes their employer muster the will to give that 100 percent? Harden tells me, “There will be countless other moments in your life when you don’t have control over everything around you. Maybe it’s your boss who’s getting under your skin. It’s unlikely that you’ll get them to change their style. The only thing that you can change is your thinking, your internal reaction. You control the controllables.”
The psychology underlying Harden’s admonition is grounded in decades of research. Known as having an internal locus of control, it’s the belief that someone controls their own success or failure; that success or failure is not the result of chance or fate. And in a Leadership IQ study, employees with that attitude were 136% happier with their careers.
It’s not the circumstances, but our reaction to them, that shapes our life and mental well-being. Harden told me about the first time Tom Brady sat in his office, not happy with being firmly ensconced on Michigan’s bench. Harden’s message to Brady was simple: “Tom, I can’t help you become the starter at Michigan. But I can help you believe you should be the starter at Michigan.”
Following those initial conversations, Brady controlled the controllables. He prepared physically and mentally like he was the starter. He couldn’t control when, or even if, he would be Michigan’s starter, but he controlled everything he could control. And part of what he controlled was giving 100 percent, 100 percent of the time.
Embracing a Tom Brady type of attitude might seem a bit overwhelming, but there are myriad simple ways to start. Pick something outside of your current comfort zone, even something for which you have no history of great achievement. That’s exactly what Harden did with one of his student-athletes. “This young man was from the inner city, with no history of academic achievement to speak of; he was there to play football and nothing more. So one day, he’s in my office, and I said to him that we’re going to use academics for you to train your mind, teach you how to be self-motivated, self-disciplined, and use self-control even in the classes where you’re bored out of your mind. And you’re going to practice, train, and rehearse giving your best even in academics. If I can teach you to give 100 percent at stuff you don’t even like, what’s going to happen when you get to the stuff you love? You’ll have a habit of giving 100 percent. You’re doing it not because I need you to get good grades, I need you to master your own mind. Months go by, and I don’t hear from him. Then one day, he walks in and says, ‘I got to tell you something; I made the dean’s list.’ The laughter and tears of joy we shared that day is one of my greatest memories.”
The irony of giving 100 percent is that in a world beset by workplace tension, business upheaval, layoffs, and just about every other form of stress imaginable, the one thing every one of us controls is ourselves. We control our effort; we control our attitude; we control how we react to the world around us. As Harden told me, “Controlling the controllables is the key to thriving in a world that can seem like it’s defined by unpredictability and change.”
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