CYN Summit 2016 | GRIT

Ben Blecha, Hero | Benkelman, NE Author

12/09/2016 Added

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CYN Summit 2016 | GRIT with Ben Blecha, Hero | Benkelman, NE

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[00:00:06.523]I've kind of switched this up a little bit,
[00:00:08.966]I'm kind of fly by the seat of my pants
[00:00:11.121]a lot of times, I guess,
[00:00:12.989]but I was thinking about grit a lot
[00:00:16.015]and what all this means,
[00:00:17.508]and we're in a Rural Catalyst group
[00:00:20.620]and we were actually talking about it.
[00:00:22.061]What do we want to know about grit?
[00:00:24.699]And so this is, you know,
[00:00:30.462]we're all in a position, like,
[00:00:32.182]we're high up on hierarchy of needs, right,
[00:00:34.491]we haven't grown up in a developing country
[00:00:37.201]that we're fighting for food,
[00:00:39.447]and we've got to figure out how to get day to day,
[00:00:42.292]and we've grown up in this different place
[00:00:45.005]than most of the world.
[00:00:47.052]And when we're raising our kids,
[00:00:50.121]we don't want to wish that upon them to,
[00:00:55.216]how do you teach them grit,
[00:00:57.432]well, we got to be tough on them,
[00:00:59.124]well that doesn't really feel good
[00:01:01.093]and seem good anymore, right.
[00:01:02.983]And so, like, I look at grit,
[00:01:06.150]and I have some experience with grit, I guess,
[00:01:09.310]I can give you my grit resume,
[00:01:11.079]I actually, I grew up with a schizophrenic father,
[00:01:16.085]and through that, my parents were divorced,
[00:01:19.567]and so at a young age, that's really tough,
[00:01:21.824]like, I was the kid that was pulled out of class
[00:01:23.602]and to go meet with a counselor,
[00:01:26.156]and I got a target on my chest.
[00:01:28.004]So you grit through some of those things,
[00:01:30.137]and it gave me some stepping stones to learn grit,
[00:01:34.859]and then later on in life, in high school,
[00:01:37.849]I was diagnosed with bone cancer,
[00:01:40.107]and I battled that for eight years,
[00:01:42.695]and it ended up in an amputation,
[00:01:44.344]so I've been an amputee for 20 years now.
[00:01:47.012]So those are some things that have gone through that,
[00:01:50.458]and I'm an entrepreneur, I have actually,
[00:01:54.157]two failed businesses, if you look at it,
[00:01:56.820]as, like they're closed,
[00:01:58.594]but if you look at it as,
[00:02:01.146]what I learned from it,
[00:02:02.296]as a stepping stone for my next businesses,
[00:02:05.004]I mean, they were huge successes.
[00:02:06.729]But through those,
[00:02:09.182]when you throw in failure,
[00:02:10.457]there's some sort of grit that goes on.
[00:02:12.631]My last bout with grit, I guess, was,
[00:02:15.711]I make dog braces, and so,
[00:02:20.545]for legs, not teeth.
[00:02:21.895](laughter)
[00:02:26.491]My business started doubling very quickly,
[00:02:29.410]and I started worrying, like,
[00:02:31.131]how am I going to be able to continue to produce this?
[00:02:34.178]I'm in a small town of 900 people,
[00:02:36.378]how can I get the workforce?
[00:02:38.671]In another community, there was another company
[00:02:40.971]that had similar manufacturing styles,
[00:02:44.329]and I was in rush to get it and acquire this company,
[00:02:48.059]and after I bought it,
[00:02:51.507]three weeks later, a person quit,
[00:02:53.233]and production dropped by 60% overnight,
[00:02:57.046]and I went into to this tailspin
[00:02:59.209]of a year and a half of trying to save this other business,
[00:03:02.665]and late nights, and a lot of worry, and what not.
[00:03:07.755]And we got through it,
[00:03:08.617]and both businesses are profitable now,
[00:03:11.652]but it was really, really scary,
[00:03:13.709]and really, really tough.
[00:03:14.813]And in a lot of ways, it was tougher than
[00:03:16.210]even going through the cancer or the other things,
[00:03:19.584]but I was prepared through all that.
[00:03:21.556]And when we're trying to raise our kids,
[00:03:24.194]we don't want to put them in
[00:03:26.121]that tough of situations to get grit.
[00:03:29.697]And we want to learn grit.
[00:03:31.511]And so I want to talk about just some things
[00:03:34.103]that I've reflected on that if we look at this as,
[00:03:39.906]practicing grit when you don't need it, right.
[00:03:43.895]It's like,
[00:03:46.232]you practice your fire drill and your tornado policies,
[00:03:50.421]in times that are calm, you know,
[00:03:53.014]so everything can go smoothly during those times,
[00:03:56.216]because when you get into the middle of grit,
[00:03:58.075]nothing makes sense in your head.
[00:03:59.971]And you're spinning all these,
[00:04:01.210]trying to things, trying to manage that.
[00:04:04.787]And so I wanted to talk about some of those skills,
[00:04:06.759]if we can work on them when things are going good,
[00:04:09.510]and just try to challenge ourselves a little bit every day,
[00:04:12.798]when you get into those situations,
[00:04:14.733]you don't really even know that you're practicing grit,
[00:04:16.915]and all of the sudden you're on the other side of it,
[00:04:18.804]and you can be successful from it.
[00:04:21.178]So,
[00:04:25.285]going the wrong way.
[00:04:27.915]I spoke a little bit about this in the beginning,
[00:04:32.704]our Maslow Hierarchy of Needs, like,
[00:04:35.591]a lot of what we talk about is generational, you know,
[00:04:38.618]boomers versus the xers, versus millennials, and what not,
[00:04:41.895]you know, the boomers, when they grew up, you know,
[00:04:45.127]90% are on a lower hierarchy of needs
[00:04:48.164]then where the xers did, that went up,
[00:04:50.671]and that's because we all want more for our kids.
[00:04:53.287]And so trying to figure out how to manage grit up here
[00:04:56.738]is much different than down here,
[00:04:58.709]and so when we hear those things from
[00:05:01.041]our parents and grandparents,
[00:05:02.477]you just go to be tough on them.
[00:05:04.036]Well, it's not the same now in how we do that,
[00:05:07.491]and so it's always important to keep that
[00:05:09.542]in the perspective of who you're talking to,
[00:05:12.632]of where they are right now,
[00:05:14.847]and where they learn theirs in the beginning,
[00:05:17.552]and so then you can carry on the conversation
[00:05:20.397]much better that way.
[00:05:24.057]Grit really starts with falling in love,
[00:05:27.058]and with anything, like,
[00:05:28.863]I was in love with life is what
[00:05:31.497]got me through cancer, right,
[00:05:33.764]and having,
[00:05:37.781]but there's like, with your job,
[00:05:40.687]so if you're trying to grit through a job,
[00:05:42.249]and I don't love it right now, and you know,
[00:05:44.917]as millennials, you know,
[00:05:47.918]you're saying, well, you're entitled,
[00:05:49.311]they're jumping from job to job,
[00:05:51.000]xers did that, boomers did that
[00:05:53.744]in this point of your life, right.
[00:05:55.752]But, like, my journey, like,
[00:05:58.627]I didn't wake up when I was eight and say,
[00:06:01.217]hey I'm going to make dog braces, you know,
[00:06:03.675]it just, nobody even thought of it, right.
[00:06:06.716]And so, like, you know,
[00:06:08.155]I had an amputation, so then I went to prosthetic school,
[00:06:11.197]and then I started hanging out
[00:06:12.925]at my uncle's vet clinic,
[00:06:14.482]and he introduced me to this other vet,
[00:06:16.621]that was doing these cool things.
[00:06:18.298]And even at that, I did it for five years
[00:06:20.851]before I actually decided to make it a business, right.
[00:06:24.033]And so it's this journey of falling in love something,
[00:06:27.648]and once you're in love with whatever your passion is,
[00:06:31.879]and, right now you're like, looking for your why,
[00:06:34.868]a lot of people are, you know,
[00:06:36.051]it's a lot of talk about that.
[00:06:37.478]But your why doesn't,
[00:06:38.789]it's a journey getting to that,
[00:06:40.553]and as soon as you have that,
[00:06:42.079]like, grit comes more natural,
[00:06:43.762]and it's a lot easier to push through that.
[00:06:46.553]And, but don't feel bad if you're switching for another job,
[00:06:49.466]you just, you've got to bring more things together,
[00:06:53.481]so you can find out what you're falling in love with.
[00:06:56.797]Just don't fall in love with dog braces,
[00:06:58.198]I don't need any competition right now.
[00:06:59.798](laughter)
[00:07:04.869]Another thing that we need to understand
[00:07:07.001]that has changed a lot in the last 10 or 15 years,
[00:07:10.576]when I graduated from high school,
[00:07:13.188]I was the only one in my class that had a computer,
[00:07:16.756]and I got it from Make a Wish, actually, you know,
[00:07:19.097]and now everybody has computer in their pocket.
[00:07:21.559]And through all of these,
[00:07:23.329]every app, I mean, every app,
[00:07:26.563]every computer program is made,
[00:07:29.428]one of their core things is to get you
[00:07:31.026]to use that as much as they can,
[00:07:33.930]so they're trying to form a habit.
[00:07:36.139]And it becomes an addiction in some cases, okay.
[00:07:39.088]And so, we have to understand that,
[00:07:41.263]but the thing is, is you can gamify this for yourself,
[00:07:44.062]you know, like, when you're Facebook thing comes up,
[00:07:46.930]you've got that little red dot in there
[00:07:48.451]that says I got, you know, one, four, seven.
[00:07:52.339]Well, today I'm going to wait until I have 10
[00:07:55.216]before I actually push that button and check it, right.
[00:07:58.368]You can do little things like that,
[00:07:59.923]but the first part is just realizing
[00:08:02.786]what's pulling you away from those things.
[00:08:05.734]And that's just little things of practicing grit
[00:08:09.047]on small scales, of you know,
[00:08:11.632]taking that instant gratification,
[00:08:14.640]and putting it an hour later,
[00:08:16.729]and then two hours later, right.
[00:08:18.374]We've got to figure out how to
[00:08:20.333]manage our need for instant gratification.
[00:08:24.344]And it's everybody, it's every generation that does it.
[00:08:30.517]The next big thing that I like to think about practicing,
[00:08:35.359]and, where I can really bring it out is,
[00:08:39.095]when I had cancer, I was sitting in a treatment room,
[00:08:42.208]and a lot of times they'd have a group treatment room,
[00:08:45.120]and it was so you could kind of talk and you know,
[00:08:49.064]help each other through things.
[00:08:50.753]And there was another kid my same age that came in,
[00:08:54.822]and he was very resentful, he was scornful to his mom,
[00:08:58.385]and he was in a wheelchair, I was still walking,
[00:09:00.888]but I sat there and first it hit me,
[00:09:03.396]that guy's not going to make it.
[00:09:05.253]And I didn't know why, but it was just something that,
[00:09:08.509]he's not going to make it, and he didn't,
[00:09:10.602]it was weird to even think that.
[00:09:13.921]But then I reflected on that more,
[00:09:16.419]and I was grateful that I could walk and he couldn't,
[00:09:20.779]and I really started taking that from then on, like,
[00:09:24.429]no matter how bad my life is,
[00:09:27.388]there's always someone that's one rung worse.
[00:09:30.954]You got two noses,
[00:09:32.429]maybe someone else has two noses,
[00:09:34.894]but they have gas problems, right.
[00:09:36.990]And so like, there's always something worse,
[00:09:40.186]you can, even if you don't know them,
[00:09:42.034]you can imagine that, that's worse.
[00:09:44.424]So be grateful of that.
[00:09:45.852]And like, well, Kayla wants to have this interactive,
[00:09:49.635]and this is kind of a part where
[00:09:50.823]I wanted an interactive of how can,
[00:09:54.694]or how do people at this point
[00:09:57.039]actually show their gratitude to people.
[00:10:00.732]I mean, what,
[00:10:02.868]are people putting this in practice,
[00:10:04.470]and trying to do it on a daily or act it, or weekly,
[00:10:08.782]if you make it a part of your process,
[00:10:11.784]is it, anybody share?
[00:10:12.974]When, and I didn't start this,
[00:10:15.625]I have to give this credit to Renee,
[00:10:17.506]but every night, when we put the kids to sleep,
[00:10:21.089]we ask them to say what they're thankful for,
[00:10:24.168]and who they want to give blessings to.
[00:10:26.553]And I think that's really important to just
[00:10:29.145]bring out the thankful part,
[00:10:31.454]and it's, you know, sometimes it's just, you know,
[00:10:34.015]we got a Slurpee today, or you know, but,
[00:10:36.492]I mean, it's a good practice, I think,
[00:10:39.206]and it's, like,
[00:10:42.622]on those really tough days,
[00:10:43.982]when you're in the middle of all this,
[00:10:45.417]like, just being able to pull away and write that card,
[00:10:48.173]to someone, I mean, it gives you shivers,
[00:10:50.805]and then, for some reason,
[00:10:52.600]the whole day works better and you can get through it.
[00:10:55.241]So it's just a good practice to get through those.
[00:10:58.988]This is actually a boy that,
[00:11:01.579]we went to, I used to go to Guatemala,
[00:11:04.239]and fit prosthetics down there,
[00:11:07.047]he, is Melvin,
[00:11:10.079]he rode on a bus, 10 hours from the mountains of Guatemala,
[00:11:15.053]with his mom, and then they waited for 10 hours one day,
[00:11:19.632]we couldn't get to them, and it was 10 hours the next day,
[00:11:22.185]before we finally got to see him.
[00:11:26.009]And they didn't have a place to stay
[00:11:27.521]when they came to the city,
[00:11:29.335]so someone else there helped them with that,
[00:11:33.073]and, but they're, you know, just so appreciative of that,
[00:11:36.120]and, you know, again,
[00:11:38.466]first world problems versus, you know, developing countries.
[00:11:46.489]This is the biggest thing that helped me get through,
[00:11:51.421]through the entrepreneurial thing and this last part, okay.
[00:11:56.324]And it's really, really tough,
[00:11:59.707]so when you're going through turmoil,
[00:12:03.645]people's anxiety levels are high, and you know,
[00:12:07.095]they know certain things, and I just want,
[00:12:09.546]I want these sheets square, you know,
[00:12:13.011]and they go to that, but what we,
[00:12:15.509]to get out of really tough situations, you know,
[00:12:18.622]the 80/20 rule, I switch it the other way,
[00:12:21.226]the 20% of what you do, makes up 80% of the impact.
[00:12:26.012]And you've got to drop all these other things
[00:12:29.675]that people are yelling and screaming in your ear,
[00:12:31.894]and you've got to go for that 20%,
[00:12:34.902]and spend all of your effort in doing it.
[00:12:37.826]And I can't tell you that I'm great at it,
[00:12:40.162]I'm still not great at it, I'm very scattered,
[00:12:42.659]but when you get into those situations,
[00:12:45.204]focusing that is going to get you quicker,
[00:12:48.334]through that and out of it,
[00:12:50.091]so everyone, as soon as that calms down,
[00:12:52.723]then we can take care of the little things on the outside.
[00:12:55.682]And in doing that, as a leader, in wherever you're at,
[00:13:00.079]you have to continue to work with that,
[00:13:02.751]and maybe that's you're 20%,
[00:13:04.393]is making sure that everybody knows it.
[00:13:06.083]You're triaging something, right,
[00:13:08.628]and so you have to be the person directing it,
[00:13:10.934]but you also have to be realizing that they
[00:13:13.361]have a heightened set of emotion too.
[00:13:15.954]If a business is going under,
[00:13:17.188]they're going to lose their job,
[00:13:19.038]how am I going to feed my kid, you know,
[00:13:23.082]when anxiety is that high,
[00:13:24.401]you don't make the same decisions
[00:13:26.371]as you do when anxiety is low, okay.
[00:13:29.293]And it's across the board,
[00:13:32.090]and so you have to realize that,
[00:13:34.134]we've got to be able to get to that.
[00:13:37.181]And the way that I remember,
[00:13:39.274](student speaking)
[00:13:40.107](laughs)
[00:13:41.534]The way I always think about that,
[00:13:43.349]is multitasking, like,
[00:13:46.187]we always talk about, well, how do I get more done,
[00:13:48.116]and this and that.
[00:13:48.949]My high school math teacher said,
[00:13:51.502]add these two numbers, right,
[00:13:53.222]you can't add all six digits at once,
[00:13:56.922]you have to break it down into one problem,
[00:13:59.878]two problems, actually, carry the one,
[00:14:02.952]three problems, four problems, right.
[00:14:05.258]And so you have to break it down in that,
[00:14:07.186]and to think that you can be doing two things
[00:14:11.718]good at once is a lie, you just,
[00:14:14.675]you're neglecting one or the other or both.
[00:14:18.444]And so you've got to focus on one, then one, and then one.
[00:14:27.194]And then, I learned this, I mean,
[00:14:29.417]if you have children, you learn this very quickly,
[00:14:34.143]you know, Renee and I, you know,
[00:14:36.640]if we're both missing sleep, we're like, okay,
[00:14:38.890]at least you get sleep,
[00:14:40.211]so we have someone that has a right mind about, you know,
[00:14:43.830]and so, this is really tough,
[00:14:46.831]and it's really tough to do and, I,
[00:14:49.588]you know, went from college,
[00:14:51.075]where I'd party until 2:00 in the morning,
[00:14:53.309]and then I could sleep on Saturday,
[00:14:56.240]and now, I don't have that luxury of doing that,
[00:15:00.184]and as you have more anxieties, it's tougher to sleep.
[00:15:03.644]But if you can focus on this,
[00:15:06.068]it makes all the other things easier,
[00:15:08.819]because that heightened state turns down,
[00:15:11.938]and then you make the good decisions
[00:15:13.738]of which, what should I be focusing on,
[00:15:16.085]who should I be helping?
[00:15:18.170]And I really believe sleep is so, so, so, so,
[00:15:23.461]should I stop, so important.
[00:15:26.387]But it is, and,
[00:15:29.843]just learning how to do that,
[00:15:31.192]and I wish I had good reading material for that,
[00:15:34.314]but I don't.
[00:15:35.661]These are some really good books
[00:15:36.813]that I've taken some of this from,
[00:15:39.093]Grit is, a lot of that talks about falling in love,
[00:15:42.771]and the whole process of it.
[00:15:44.821]The One Thing is about focus, and, you know,
[00:15:48.031]multitasking versus, how do you,
[00:15:52.149]where do you work, where do you put your efforts.
[00:15:54.766]Predictably Irrational, you know,
[00:15:56.538]it has some things about
[00:15:58.106]when you're thinking in a high anxiety
[00:16:01.850]versus a normal state.
[00:16:03.939]But these are all good books to read
[00:16:05.178]for the people that read, and that's it.
[00:16:08.385](laughter)
[00:16:09.944]That's it.
[00:16:10.777](applause)

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CYN Summit 2016 | GRIT

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