Handling Hard, Holding Outcomes Lightly, and Leaving a Lasting Mark

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The Daily Coach has explored powerful lessons on handling hard better, staying grounded under pressure, learning from both wins and losses, and leaving every place better than you found it.

For this week’s Saturday Blueprint, we’ve gathered some of our favorite insights on these themes to help us lead with greater resilience, clarity, connection, and lasting impact.

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On Handling Hard Better:

It’s human nature to lament your lot in life, where you are right now and complain about this, complain about that. But complaining and growth cannot exist at the same time. It’s impossible. If you’re in the headspace of complaining about something, it’s impossible for you to grow at the same time. You can’t. You have to actually stop doing one thing for the other to occur. 

What I try to do is to stop the complaining and worry about the growth… Every time I get in that space where I’m not handling hard better, I say, “O.K., you can do this and you can keep going down this road, but you will not be growing during the entire time you’re in this space. If you’re O.K. with that, you can keep going and do that.” 

That’s how I look at it. I just focus on the growth, and amazing things happen when you focus on that. You end up having more success — and you end up having things go your way.

― Kara Lawson, Duke Women's Basketball Coach

On the Concept of "Engaged Detachment:"

I got that from a book by Rich Cohen, who was writing about his dad, Herbie Cohen, who was a great negotiator who was brought into all these high-pressure situations. That was his mantra. The way he was talking about it was the strongest position to be in as a negotiator is to care but not that much, to approach it like if I lose this, it doesn’t matter. When you come at it from that perspective, you’re in a position of power, because either way, you sort of win.

Shaun White, before he’d drop into a halfpipe during the Olympics, would say to himself, “Who cares?” It was a way to take the pressure off. Obviously, he works for years and years to get to this one moment, he was engaged and had put in the work, but in that pressure moment, he tells himself to detach and just do what he does, and the score will take care of itself.

― Billy Oppenheimer, Writer and Research Assistant to Ryan Holiday

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On the Phrase, “Sometimes You Win. Sometimes You Learn:”

It suggests you don’t learn from winning, but success leaves clues, too. A lot of times, we only pause and reflect and try to get back to the drawing board after a loss. We don’t do that as much after we win. “What did I learn? How did I prepare? How did we get lucky?” We celebrate, go out, put it on social media and move onto the next things when I think we can pull out so many lessons from success. I would rephrase it. “Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. You learn from both.”

― Justin Su'a, Founder, Performance Advisory Group

On Leaving Places Better Than You Found It:

Always leave things better than you found them. Whatever you do—whether you’re coaching, working with a team, or leading a group—make sure your impact improves the players, the team, the organization and the overall situation. That’sa big part of what I hope my legacy will be. 

It’s not always about how many wins you achieve. It’s about thriving on the journey of getting better—moving from where you are to where you can be. That’s something you can’t lose sight of. 

And you also can’t underestimate the importance of culture—your values, your identity, and what you stand for. When a culture is strong, you can hear it, see it, and feel it. That’s what defines outstanding organizations in any sport and industry.

― Lin Dunn, Hall of Famer and Indiana Fever Senior Advisor

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