Embrace the Grind

Many people think those who are successful are so because they are simply lucky…

When I was hitting the weights at 5 am this morning I looked around and couldn’t find my lucky charm anywhere.

Others think those who are successful are so because they came from wealthy families and were born privileged with a “silver spoon” in their mouth.

I grew up with a plastic spoon in my mouth and still use it frequently.

The reality is successful people are willing to do the things other people are unwilling to do and dedicate inordinate amounts of time to mastering a skill, task or goal.  In his book Outliers, author Malcom Gladwell explains the 10,000-hour rule in which he identified 10,000 hours as the average time it takes for a successful person to truly master a skill.  He came up with this rule after studying countless numbers of successful people and documenting the amount of time they invested in order to achieve success. He goes on to say 20 hours of practice per week, doing the same thing over and over, for a 10-year period was the key to their success. Doing the same thing over and over for 10,000 hours in order to perfect it? That sounds a little like a grind.

Exactly what does “the grind” mean?

The dictionary says the grind means to reduce something to powder by crushing it.

The slang dictionary says the grind means boring, tedious work. 

At a company leadership meeting last year, one of our Vice Presidents made a simple, yet profound statement when he said, “success is all about being willing to embrace the grind.”

We’ve all had those shifts, days, weeks and months where grinding gets old, grinding gets hard, grinding really sucks. But then you realize that grinding is the price of success and successful people are willing to grind away in order to achieve their goals.

From conducting great daily business reviews to writing a great weekly schedule, these repetitive tasks often feel like a grind, but they hold the key to consistent success. At GPS, embracing the grind means understanding this fact and being disciplined in your approach each day. As leaders our job is to bring organization and structure to one of the most chaotic environments anywhere – a fast food restaurant. Our ability to do this consistently at the highest level is the key to our future success.

Grinding is certainly not the language of those who can’t rise to a certain level in the organization (also known as “grinders”). It is the language of the successful, those people who know that each day holds thousands of choices between what’s easy and what’s right. Often times what’s right requires a little grinding and those who are life’s winners are willing to “embrace the grind.”