Playing Injured
Playing Injured reminds us that life challenges us all—athletes aren’t the only ones who play hurt. Whether it’s setbacks or unexpected curveballs, our response defines who we are and how we grow. This podcast explores the universal journey of resilience and perseverance, inspiring listeners to face adversity head-on.
Ranked in the top 2.5% of podcasts globally, hosts Josh Dillingham and Mason Eddy—entrepreneurs and former collegiate athletes—deliver over 100 episodes featuring diverse voices. They explore mindsets, uncover strategies, and motivate listeners to thrive and play through anything.
Playing Injured
Former Professional Football Player: Redefining Success and Choosing Effort Over Results
Former professional football player Quinn Magnuson shares his journey from playing through multiple injuries to founding the Effort Over Results movement and coaching high performers. We explore how accountability to teammates drives athletes to push beyond their limits and why the mindset of focusing on effort rather than outcomes creates more resilient, confident individuals.
• Accountability to teammates and commitment to the team drives athletes to play through pain and injury
• Most humans don't realize how powerful the accountability of their immediate circle and environment is
• The true separator between good and great is doing the work when nobody is looking
• Today's culture overly emphasizes showcasing results on social media rather than celebrating the process
• When we praise children for talent rather than effort, we create "talented wimps" who crumble under adversity
• The "Paint Layer Theory" demonstrates how small daily efforts compound into significant growth over time
• Studies show children praised for effort choose more challenging tasks than those praised for intelligence
• Focusing on effort over results creates resilience when facing inevitable setbacks and failures
• Living with an identity rooted in performance creates fragility; focusing on inputs builds sustainable growth
• Parents and coaches should praise the process and effort rather than outcomes to develop mentally tough individuals
Check out Quinn's podcast "Effort Over Results" on all platforms, visit effortoverresults.com, or follow @effortoverresults on Instagram to learn more about his upcoming book and movement.
Follow Playing Injured on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playinginjured/
All right, welcome to another episode of Playing Injured. We have an exciting episode. We have Mr Quinn Magnuson, who is a former professional football player, turned high performance coach to CEOs, athletes, entrepreneurs. He's the founder of the Effort Over Results movement and he also has a podcast called Effort Over Results. Mr Quinn, how are we feeling today?
Speaker 2:Yes, sir. Thank you, Josh, I appreciate it. Just like I was telling you, when I saw the title of your podcast, I had to be on it. We got to talk about playing injured and really just learning from all those lessons. So let's go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And before we hit record, you are already letting me know you've had over 11 surgeries playing football and going out there and pushing your body to the limit. And I think when I first started this show, I wanted folks to understand what was the mindset behind going out there, giving it your all, not being 100%, sometimes making stupid choices, right, what do you think that was? What was that mindset, when you look back, that made you continue to just go out there and push it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think it's 5% stupidity. I think a lot of it, though, is it's accountability to your teammates, to the people around you, and, and just knowing that people are counting on you and and you're really counting on yourself, and and so you push yourself. You know, even from the early days of playing sports as a kid, you, you learn to play a little banged up and you eventually build that body resiliency, but also the pain tolerance it builds up, and I think it's important for people to really to push themselves, whether it be in the gym. I mean, I certainly don't expect people to have so many injuries as I've had, but I don't think humans really understand how, how resilient the body is, um, and that pushing the body to see what it can do, it's, you know David Goggin said. I mean, we have no clue what the body can do with the mind will stop first, right and uh.
Speaker 2:So for me, you know being being accountable to my teammates, accountable to myself, accountable, you know, when you're younger, to your parents who invested in you to be in those sports. Um, I think it's just important to show people that you, you are always going to be the kind of person they can count on and and you know, in some cases, josh it you know, when you get into college and into the pros you really can't afford to be hurt. So you play hurt and injured because you're the best available option for that position for the team at that time. And then I found, actually when I got into the pros I had one of my teammates say to me you don't make the club in the tub right, and so you learn to play hurt there too.
Speaker 2:So it's like I said, it's a little bit of ignorance, trying to ignore what really you should be doing. And I think in today's sports like my son's a college football player too they treat them a lot better now and they handle their injuries a lot differently. But you know, back in the back in the 1900s, when I played it was it was a little different. So you had to push yourself concussions, you know, strained ligaments, hamstring pulls, whatever. You just did it because people are counting on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know you say something that's that's. I think that's the answer. Right Is accountability and that's I think that's the answer there. Right, it's accountability. And I mean I remember breaking my thumb and rushing to get back, matter of fact, trying to get back out there, the game that I broke it, trying to get back out there and it was because of the people around me. It was the accountability of the group. It was the accountability of the group and as humans, we don't realize how powerful the accountability of our immediate circle in our environment is. Right, and that's why it's so powerful to be around amazing people.
Speaker 1:You know, I was out in Mexico City for two weeks and I joined a run club. I just wanted to get out there, I wanted to meet people and, um, I didn't know it was a serious run club. I didn't know we were gonna run six miles. I thought it was gonna be a light jog, one or two miles.
Speaker 1:I'm not the biggest runner and I found myself halfway through this run like my mind was telling me like, hey, I cannot go any further, no way, I can keep going, no way. But I was around people who I barely knew and they were amazing runners and I didn't want to let them down. I didn't want to let them down Right, and so I pushed my body, my body pushed it and I made it through. And it was just a beautiful example of if I was here alone. If I was doing this alone, then I wouldn't have gone as far as I did. It's the African proverb right If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. And I think just the accountability of a group will take you so far, farther than you can even imagine, and you'll even push yourself through things that you probably wouldn't have if you were going alone.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, I think there's two sides to that story. I think being pushed by others and being accountable to others is really important, and then I think there's also the can you do the work when nobody's looking right? And we know that as athletes, you got you got to do the work when no one's looking, and and that's something that that is a bit disappointing in in today's young athlete it feels like every workout they do is on Instagram, you know, and when they're getting recruited, it's on Twitter. They're telling people how much they worked out that week, but unfortunately, it's part of the game. But I think there's importance to feeling accountable to those around you, but then also being accountable to yourself too, in those times when you're alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's the separator, right, that's the separator. It's so crazy that we are super accountable to other people, right? I mean, that's how human beings are wired um. But how can we be accountable to ourselves? How can we really have that loyalty to ourselves and not let ourselves down? And it's so easy to just hit the alarm clock, right, nobody's watching. I'm just letting myself down, right. How crazy is that? I'm just letting myself down, right.
Speaker 2:Uh you know, and that's the number one person you should be accountable to, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1:100, that's the crazy part right, 100 right.
Speaker 1:And so when you say things out loud, I think that's something that we can start to do is, hey, when I, when I'm not doing something that I'm supposed to be doing and I know I need to do it certain habits, how can I say, oh, I'm letting myself down and, like, really think about that. We won't let you know a stranger down. I didn't let eight other strangers down in Mexico City, but it's so easy for me to just hit my alarm clock and let myself down. It's so amazing of how human beings are wired. But, like you mentioned, that's the separator right there.
Speaker 2:Well, and there's a chapter in my book that's going to be coming out at Christmas that talks about literally the origins of effort over results, and it talks about going back thousands of years. When you're in a community and everyone has to count on everybody, you don't have a choice. And if you aren't accountable to the group, if you aren't going out and doing your it's almost like watching survivor, right, if you aren't going out and you aren't doing your share of the hunting or or the foraging or the gathering or whatever, they'll basically kick you out, like they'll just get rid of you because you're useless to the group and and so that's where that accountability to others that it's. It's, it's historical, like it's in our genetics, to be accountable to each other in a group setting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then also too right that mechanism of caring what what other people think of you, Right.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and it's, it's, it's that one's a tough one though, Josh, don't you?
Speaker 2:think like like we, we, we hear conflicting messages and I know you're much younger than I am, but you know it used to be care what other people think. And then it feels to me like in the last decade it's been like don't care what anybody thinks, it's all about you, and I think that's it's a bit of a mixed message, and I don't think we're trying to say don't care about anybody else. What we're saying is make sure you hold up your end of the bargain within the entire picture, right? So it's yeah, man, there's that alone time where you got to be accountable to you and only you. And then there's other times where people expect you to show up and that goes for work, that goes to your teammates, that goes to your co-workers and everything. So that's what it's about. It's about the effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. Speaking of effort, effort over results, right, yeah, yeah, when you talk about it, right, it's almost like, especially in today's age, and I think that Twitter generation started kind of when I was in high school. You know, you get an offer, you get a letter, you want to take a picture of it. You know it's amazing, it is an accomplishment.
Speaker 2:Hashtag AGTG All glory to God. Yeah, my seventh offer, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:No, 100%. And you want to show results right, yeah, you want to show it, you want to show what I've done, what I've accomplished. But very few people actually want to show the effort, the process right and that's the best part right. But I think a lot of folks kind of live in results over effort. How can I get the fastest result? I think that's life in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, people, people, live, people and once again, this, this, this too is is in our genetics as well. It's about, it's about achievement, it's about, you know, getting results. And and even more so once again with the advent of social media it's all about look at me, look at me, look at me. But they show the result Right. And then, even when people show the work that they're putting in, for the most part it's almost virtue signaling, right, and it's that work you do when no one's looking. That really is the stuff that actually counts.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, we live in a world where these, these young athletes, you know, coming out of high school, have to almost put on their Twitter that how much work they're doing and show their workouts so the coaches can see you know, you know what they're, what they're, what they're doing in terms of getting better. But I still believe that, you know, results are important. So I don't want people to get mixed up when, when I say effort over results and they, they, they mistake that with, well, not goal setting or not, you know, achieving anything. No, what I'm saying is that you need to be proud of yourself for the effort you put in that led to the result. And so when we praise people, um, and give the messaging especially young kids about you know, oh, you're so talented, that's a result statement. Oh, you're so athletic, that's a result statement. Right, because you're you're showing what that the kid is, is, is at the end of something you won. So athletic, that's a result statement. Right, because you're showing what that kid is at the end of something you won the race. You're so athletic, you're so talented, you're so smart.
Speaker 2:What you should be messaging to them really is I really loved how you worked this week. I love the work you put into your workouts, into your running, into the lifting, into studying for a test, instead of just, oh, you got an A, here's 20 bucks for getting an A, and I think that's where we need as parents and educators, teachers, coaches, employers need to really start changing the narrative is focus on letting those people that you're leading know that you're proud of the effort they put in, and that's what you're looking for. Yeah, even if they didn't get the result, because there's going to be days where you put in a ton of effort. There's months, like when I'm in a sales position, where I put in a ton of activity and and never get a sale, yeah. And my leader says to me hey, quinn, I know you did the work, it's okay, it'll happen next month. Same thing thing with athletes, you know, students, whatever. So keep praising that effort and the results happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like what that creates is a culture of identity rooted in performance, right In results. I'm worthy if, and only if, I get this result right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's days you don't get results. Josh, right, I mean, you know this. It's as an athlete, you can put in. I mean, even as a team. You put in all the work, you get through the season only to lose a championship game and everybody focuses on the fact you lost a championship game. And it's like look at all, look at it, look at everything we learned this year, looking how we came together as a team, look how everyone got individually better and that. That. That speaks to the process, and I I hate to use the hashtag trust the process, but it's true and and and. Then it speaks to how this team is going to be even better next year because of all the work they put in.
Speaker 2:Don't get me wrong winning a championship is fantastic. Losing a championship sucks, um, but you know, I had a coach that once said to me you know, if you lose and it doesn't hurt, that says a lot about you. That means you didn't put a lot of work in during the season. It should hurt. Losing should absolutely be one of the most painful things you experience in life because you put the work in right, and so that's why we need to keep messaging that, and I mean it's you know studies become more innovative, they take challenges on better, they want to take on more work, because you're not, you're not basically basing their existence and their worth on a, on a single result. Yeah, and that's. That's where I think the messaging has to change yeah, and you're not going to succeed every time.
Speaker 1:I was actually looking at, um, I was looking at a post that you put on Instagram. Right, it's about Frank Sinatra. Yeah, I got it right here. Frank Sinatra, right? He released 1,200 songs, 209 hits that's 17%. Babe Ruth 8,399 attempts, 714 home runs that's 8.5%. Pablo Picasso over 150,000 pieces of work 1,170 hits that's 0.7%. 90% of their outputs is not popular, so you have to keep going right, and so, more times than not, you're probably going to fail or lose or miss, uh, or get no showed, right, um, and so it makes sense to praise the effort over the results.
Speaker 2:Because then? Because then that that person that you're praising for their effort will know, because they know they can control that, right, josh, yeah, I can control my. They. Always coaches say you can control two things your effort, your attitude. I can control my effort. So if you, if I, keep getting praised for effort result, if you only pray for me for none of this mattered, yeah, and that's not the message we need to be sending kids.
Speaker 2:But I love that post and I'll tell you why is because everybody and once again I keep reminding people of of what social media has done to us. It makes the world look perfect, right. It makes all of our vacations look outstanding. It makes the world look perfect, right, it makes all of our vacations look outstanding. And what we need to realize is that, you know, like Picasso, 150,000 works of art and 0.8% only really sold and became famous. Everybody should be going through that.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing with podcasting. I was so afraid to start my podcast because I wanted the first one to be absolutely perfect Perfect lighting, perfect microphones, everything. And finally, uh, somebody just said to me just record it, just go ahead and record it. Who cares if it sucks? If you've ever watched some of the first podcasts from, like you know, joe Rogan or Chris Williamson or Scott Galloway or all the famous podcasters, their first podcast are horrible. They're terrible but they just kept doing it and only it's like only like 10% of podcasts make it past the fourth recording. You know things like that. So we're both doing great, man, but yeah, we got it. We got to definitely keep messaging to the people that we love and that we care for and that we're trying to teach and coach and educate. Um, you know's all about just putting, putting in the work yeah, you know you got me thinking you're talking about things.
Speaker 1:You can control effort. Um, I'm thinking about attitude. Right, you can control our attitude, and if you're so focused on the results, it's hard to keep a great attitude versus the input. Right, if you focus on the input and you can pat yourself on the back every day, it's pretty remarkable the results you can get while also having a great attitude along with the effort.
Speaker 2:You're going to be batting 1,000,. Man, if you're putting in the work every day, that's all that matters. You're always batting 1,000. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, it reminds me it's a book the great Bill Walsh we don't know Bill Walsh, one of the best coaches, if not the best coach ever in, you know, nfl football, and he has a book called the Score Takes Care of Itself. And I remember reading this book, maybe two, three years ago, and that title really struck me because it was all about the process of all the little, small details and habits that needed to be built in order for the score to take care of itself and the results, the case, take care of itself. And, um, I think this is the same message here, and I'm even thinking about habits, right, um, along with effort. Right, we talk about attitude, we talk about effort. I'm thinking about habits. Right, you can control on a daily basis Habits. How important is that? Right, where to start to focus on inputs, the inputs that we have, and the habits?
Speaker 2:right, I don't know if you've ever read Atomic Habits by James Clear, but obviously you know people in our space are at least aware of the book. Um, I, I read it and and it it helped reinforce, and I referenced atomic habits in my book. Um, because it it it just talks about. You know, if you want to, you know I'll even use this example, like when I finished playing football, I was well over 300 pounds, um, and I wanted to lose weight and so I set a goal of getting down to two 70 and I focused too much on on the two 70 part and so I jumped on a scale and I'd gained two pounds and I was like I was so dejected and so forth. But but, um, the habits, it's even even for people who are like, I know I should go to the gym because I know it'll make me healthier and I'll feel better, but I just have a hard time getting to the gym. Or they make an excuse. You know it's like, well, I don't have time to go to the gym. It's like, well, no, you do have time, you just haven't made a priority and and it comes down to to, uh, environment and cues, and when it comes to habits, developing habits. It's, it's about the environment you're, you're, you're in on a daily basis. But then also the little cues. And so I came up with this, saying it's like just put your gym bag by the door and what that means.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you a little story about my daughter. So my daughter was a college athlete. Um COVID shut her, her career down completely. She came home and she stopped going to the gym, stopped working out, like she didn't go for three years. And in 2024, she I was like you know Ann, and in 2024, I was like you know Annika. I said you used to be like this high-performance athlete man and you're not even going to the gym at all. And she's like I'm scared to. Now I don't want to. I'm so out of shape.
Speaker 2:I said, well, how about this? How about once a week you and I just go to the gym and watch people work out? Like are you serious? I go, yeah, they've got. Like are you serious? I go, yeah, they got massage chairs there. I said we'll go, sit in the massage chairs and we'll watch. We'll just watch, we'll be in the environment. She's like okay, can we grab coffee on the way? I'm like sure. So for the first couple of sundays we just we just grabbed coffees and went and sat at the you know the pro shop or sat in the massage chairs and watch people work out. And she'd be sitting there and she'd be like, oh, that, that guy's form is terrible. And she'd be sitting there and she'd be like, oh, that, that guy's form is terrible. And she'd be like I can lift more than that person. And it kind of got her juiced again, right. And then, and then I said okay, I said next Sunday, I said I just want you to put your gym bag by the door.
Speaker 2:You don't have to bring it, but at least have it by the door when I come to pick you up. And so for Sunday she didn't. Second Sunday I see her walk out of her apartment with her gym bag in her hand and I'm like, okay, all right. And that's the thing that people don't get is like you don't need to go to the gym and achieve everything in day one or even in month one. It is layers, it is just layers of effort that lead to where you want to go. But the people focus so hard on the end, the finish line, the end result, the goal, that everything becomes a failure because they feel like they're so far away from it. Instead of focusing on what's right in front of them, they focus on what's down the road, and so that put the gym bag by the door. It's it that goes for anything.
Speaker 2:If you want to write a book, okay, well, maybe learn something. Spend 20 minutes learning. You want to write a book? Okay, well, maybe learn something. Spend 20 minutes learning about how to write a book or write a few words down. Or if you're trying to learn how to, you know, I don't know, but there's so many examples and then just take the smallest little micro step, but consistently. Do it daily or weekly, so you get into a bit of a habit of doing that, and then, at some point in time, your mind and your body go this is now, this is the norm, yeah, and.
Speaker 2:And it escalates and it gets better, and and the best way I can describe it, josh I always it's funny my daughter and I spent a lot of time together and I tell her are you stacking layers today? And she and we, we have that saying because I said if you take a piece of paper and you take, you know, dip your paintbrush in and you go on the paper. If you look at the paper like this, you won't see the paint Because it's gone into the paper, it's flat. Next day, another layer. You don't see it. Next day, another. Okay, maybe by day eight you're now starting to see a little buildup Right, and by day 20, now, all of a sudden, you got some thickness there and by day a hundred man, that that thing is weighing the middle of that paper down because it's so thick.
Speaker 2:This is how we need to treat our lives. Stop focusing on the end result. It'll happen if you put the effort in. So focus on the effort. I'm not saying goals aren't good. I'm not saying don't goal set or don't don't have something you want to achieve, but set it and forget it. And then day one, not one day, day one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, set the goal, to set the intentions of what you want to do every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, whatever the output is okay, now what are the inputs? And then just focus on the inputs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an amazing analogy. I've never heard that before, actually.
Speaker 2:I heard. I heard. I won't. I'm not going to say that I came up with that. It was. I believe it was Alex Hermosi. I don't know if you know Alex Hermosi, but I love Alex and he I think he came up with that and it just made so much sense to me Like you're not going to see the paint for a few days, maybe a month, who knows right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and the patience right.
Speaker 2:Patience and you're going to have setbacks. They're going to be. Maybe you went to the gym five days a week for a month and then maybe you had a bad week where you only got there once. And then people are like, well, I had a crappy week and I didn't get to the gym and now I feel like everything's gone. Start again. It's okay.
Speaker 1:Start again, build more layers up, it's okay, yeah, how do you handle those setbacks? Right, we talk about resilience. You know handling setbacks, handling the failures, because it's the reality is, most of us were taught that results are important. Right and honestly, you know losing and failing, um, you know, you know losing that championship uh, not getting that job, uh, not doing well on the interview. You know all the results that we actually wanted. How can we handle those losses, those failures?
Speaker 2:I, I still am working on that, josh, I still am working on. You know, when I have setbacks, not letting it get to me, it's tough. I have to. I have to keep reminding myself that, that I learned something from it, or what can I learn from that? And and I think, but the reason why people get the mindset of of feeling, you know, it's a negative feeling or feeling dejected when there's a setback is because of of how they've been raised and the environments they've been raised. Right, if it.
Speaker 2:Let me give you an example here. Let's imagine a three-year-old child who's putting a puzzle together, a very simple child's puzzle, and they're not getting it. So the parent says to them that's okay, you'll get it next time. What you've just said to the child is you failed, you're going to have to try again next time to see if you can get the end result again. It's still not a positive message to send to the child. I would actually say to the child, I would. I would actually say to the child I saw you working really hard on that. What would you try differently next time? Get them to think through the process right? Same thing with a 10 year old, with a 20 year old guys, our age, your age, right, it's, it's your.
Speaker 2:The reason why they're called setbacks is because you've basically thought that there's either it's either win or lose. But really it's win or learn. And I know that sounds super cliche and I even cringe sometimes when I hear win or learn, because sometimes I want to wallow in the lose right and I want to feel that sadness. But it's taken me I'm 54 now and it's taken me till the age of probably 49, 50 to really understand that every setback and once again cliche, sorry about this, but every setback, and once again cliche, sorry about this, but every setback has a comeback and it gives you an opportunity to try again, to defeat that thing and and to and to, but to learn from it. You can't just say I lost or I failed at it and now I'm going to try again, hoping to win or lose again, depending on what the the result is. You want to do it again because you're going to work harder at it, you're going to learn from the last time you you didn't achieve it and you're going to change the way you approach it.
Speaker 2:And and this is why you know, when you see young athletes, um, that are just, they're just gifted, right, they just they show up in the hockey rink and they show up at the baseball diamond or or the football field. And they show up at the baseball diamond or or the football field and they just run circles around kids, right, they're the best at eight years old, the best eight-year-old on the field. Yeah, those kids, eventually the other kids catch up to them, because those kids were were almost hand hand, given by god the ability to just be better than everybody without having to work for it. Those aren't the kids I want on my team, necessarily, because those are the kids that when they do eventually face adversity, where now they get to the age of, say, 12 or 13, other kids have caught up in age and speed and size and now they're not winning every race and they don't know what to do. Yeah, they have no resilience, they have no way.
Speaker 2:And and my daughter was one of those kids she came out of the womb of those kids. She came out of the womb, I swear. She came out of the room womb, throwing discus and swimming, like, like. She was incredibly athletically talented, smart, and we kept telling her you're so smart, you're so talented athletic, and so everything was I win or I've lost. I win or I've lost. I win or I've lost.
Speaker 2:So when she finally got to the age of of 12, she was swimming in a race against older girls. She lost the race. And she's in the corner bawling her eyes out. And I go over to her. I said Annika, why are you crying? She's like I lost. I came in last.
Speaker 2:I said you broke your own provincial record for 12 year olds in the race. And she's like I did. I'm like yeah, you just set the provincial record for 12 and under 50 meter breaststroke. Who cares if you lost the race, you just achieved a personal best. And I said you should be happy, you've worked hard for this. And she's like oh, okay, but this is what I'm saying, josh, is that these kids who are, who are uber athletically talented or or or educatedly talented, intelligent, they don't know how to handle that adversity when they eventually do face a better opponent, someone who's as good as they are. Yeah, and it's and that goes for adults too right, there's some people who are just naturally gifted and then they face the, and that's why I'm preaching the effort or result, saying and and it it's changed people because they go I didn't win, but I got better, and that's the only person you really should be competing against is yourself 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:I ramble, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, you know, because there's so many thoughts that I had. It's a few things right. I remember, especially in college, my coach used to call guys who were going up against and they would probably be averaging, you know, 25 points a game and we could look at the film and he would show us all the amazing shots that they made Right. And then he would show us clips of some of these guys where they didn't hustle or they got out physical. Somebody made them, you know, tap out, made them quit, and we used to call them talented wimps. And those were the guys that you knew you could get to them, you knew you could, you could, you could break them.
Speaker 1:Now, some guys who were just too talented, there was nothing you can do, but it was some guys where we understood that right, where it was, like you said, the results driven. They relied on the results. They relied on the external things as opposed to kind of those intrinsic, um, yeah, skills that you develop through adversity, through, um, the habits that you build through um, resilience and setbacks right. You can always tell when somebody has battled something and they're battle tested.
Speaker 2:You know those are the teams that you fear well, think about, think about, um, like you got recruited out of high school, just like I did, we didn't. They didn't give us three or four or five stars back then they didn't know what those were. But like my son, for example, um, you know, he was a three star and but these four and five star kids they show, um, I want a ton of three star kids. Mean, that's how a lot of college programs build a great program is, with a bunch of grinders and kids who just don't give up, they, they will, they refuse to to, you know, not be in the weight room. They're like those.
Speaker 2:You got to mix in a lot of those great grinding three-star kids with your fours and fives to teach them a lesson, because if your five-star kids are just showing up and they're just going through the motions, what a horrible, you know example to set for your, for the rest of the team. And that's why I mean, yeah, every, every coach wants the five-star. But man, I'll, I'll take, I'll take, I'll take 80% of my team being three stars first and and mix in some really, you know, some really solid that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100, 100. So, um, tell me this, um, the, the. You talk about effort over results, movement. What does that look like? That movement? What does that look like? Um, what is the? What is the future hold with? It sounds like you have a book coming out as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know the theory and the philosophy behind Effort to Resolve any life coach. You know your Tony Robbins, your Mel Robbins, your. You know the people who everybody talks about, right, simon Sinek, what they're saying isn't anything new. They're just putting in a different package and presenting it in a way that's more palatable to the world. And so when I think about effort or results, and when I was writing the book and, like I said, it's my first book, it's going to be coming out in the fall Christmas I didn't want people to think that this is my idea. It isn't, because, as I'm writing the book, I'm realizing, when I'm doing the study and the research and looking into past studies and past theories, this really just it's boiled down to. It just boils down to work ethic, it boils down to trusting the process, it boils down to you know, you can only control your effort and your attitude. So those are the two things you should be focusing on the most. But where, where? Where?
Speaker 2:The origins of this happened, josh, was because of my kids, because I was a results guy my entire life, like I was. I was fairly talented as a kid. I, I, I threw shot, put it for team Canada never lost. I never lost a shot. Put competition from the age of 12 to the age of 19. You know, and so it was like results, results, results. I made senior football team in the ninth grade. You know I was the best high school football player in my province, if not Canada, got the scholarship and it was just all results. Realize the, the, the negative message of results only parenting, let's call it, or results only coaching, or results only you know, employing. And so in this last five years, as as my son was getting recruited uh down in the states for football and my and my daughter went down for discus, um, it dawned on me that when I that, when I messaged to them about I just want to see you put the work in, I don't care what happens, I don't care if you earn the scholarship, I don't care if you you know, you know win today's game or whatever. I just want to know that you put your best effort into everything. And when I started messaging that and this is shortly after, you know, my daughter in the swimming uh episode that I told you about. But all of a sudden their attitude changed and their work ethic got stronger and they became more resilient. I was like huh, that actually works, and so I started looking at it.
Speaker 2:I was listening to a podcast with Andrew Huberman, who I'm sure most of your listeners are familiar with, but he talked about the work of Dr Carol Dweck, the psychologist from Stanford University, where he is, and she wrote a book called Growth Mindset. And in Growth Mindset there's a chapter dedicated to a study that they did with grade school children. I believe they were third grade and they gave these 500 grade school children all the same test very simple test and in the end they basically praised half of the group for the effort they put in. I saw how hard you're working on that. How did you think of that question? And the other half, who did really well, they basically just praised them for the final result the A+, the 90+ that they got on the quiz. Final result the A plus, the 90 plus that they got on the quiz. Then they asked the same group okay, we're going to give you another test. Would you like to have a slightly harder test, be a little more challenging, or do you want to take like the same level type quiz or test? The kids who were praised for their result took the easy test. The kids who were praised for their effort for the most part took the easy test because they knew that there wasn't a punishment for not doing well as long as they put effort in.
Speaker 2:And I, I, I read through this study in its entirety and I'm like that's brilliant. When you, when you tell people that they're that, they're being, that, their, their success comes from the work they put in, they re, they know they can control that. But if you tell people that their success only comes from the output, from the result, all of a sudden fear sets in. Right, tighten up, yeah, yeah, they tighten up and they don't want to take. God forbid I take a harder test because if I fail now I look bad. Because I aced the first one and so I took this.
Speaker 2:I started applying it to my kids. I started applying it to my kids. I started applying to the kids that I coached and everywhere around me I just saw people getting better because of it, and one in particular, and only because he lives in my house, my son. When I finally told him because he was a horrible test taker, smart kid, but couldn't he just had test paranoia I told him. I said, kid, I don't care how you do on the test. If I see you work your tail off studying for it, he's like, really he goes, what if I fail? I go. As long as I saw you study for it and you put in an honest effort maybe you work with me because I was teaching at the time I said I don't care what the result is. So, sure enough, we started doing that and he was getting sixties and seventies and I was like and he's like, I said, what'd you get on the last test? He goes. I don't want to tell you I go why he goes, cause I got like a 58 and I go. Okay, I said we studied for that test together. You learn, because for two weeks you learned this stuff. You just had a bad day and he just and you could see everything just kind of relaxing him and I thought, okay, I got to take this further.
Speaker 2:So the Effort Over Results, philosophy and the movement now is this podcast, because it goes beyond that. It's about resilience, which you speak to. It's about growth mindset, which I know you speak to as well, and why I want podcasts and to co-host and guests on all different platforms because we need to get this message out and I know I'm going to come up against people that say, well, you should be results driven, everybody should be, have goals and goal setting. It's like, yes, but here's the here's the negative setback to that. If you do so, the book's coming out in the fall, the podcast speaks to it. So the book's coming out in the fall, the podcast speaks to it.
Speaker 2:I try to incorporate it into. You know all the aspects of my life where I'm a leader. So, whether it's coaching, amateur sports, or even in the workplace, or obviously with the clients, you know that I work with one-to-one. I keep getting them to just stop focusing so hard on end results and I just said, okay, what are your inputs? Then just do that. I don't. It's like. It's like people who get on a scale every day. They're on a diet, right. That is the worst thing you could possibly do, because now you're just like beating yourself down. Right, did you? Did you eat well today? Good, that's the win, that's the win, right? So, yeah, so it's. I've given it a name and and the here's the funny thing I remember, um, and I'll end, I'll. I'll end this answer on this one.
Speaker 2:But my son was at Arizona. He's now in his fourth season. He's a starter, arizona football and he's being interviewed by the media and they were asking him about his, his, his journey, because he started out basically didn't play for three years but he never, ever gave up. He always put you know the work ethic and never miss practices, never makes workouts and anything. He finally gets his chance to start and they say what do you attribute this to? He goes. Well. It's like my dad always said effort over results and I was so proud of him in that moment I had a tear in my eye and I'm like he actually said the term and I and and they said what do you mean by that? And he goes. He just, he just preaches at me that I just got to keep putting my effort in yeah and not worry about what happens.
Speaker 2:He goes. I can't control what the coaches think, I can only control what I do and that changed everything for him and and from then, that day on, I was like I got to get this message out to everybody. So that's, that's where it comes from, man yeah, and it's, I mean, for me.
Speaker 1:The reason why it hits home for me is because, you know, my identity for most of my life is built on performance, right, and you know, even as I'm growing up, you know, even you know, as I grow older, I'm like just going out and doing things that make me uncomfortable, um, that I'm scared to do. Just just doing it, yeah, not even worried about the outcome. That's what makes me feel good. Just doing it and doing it over and over again, right, and getting over certain fears and not worrying about the outcome. It's just so important.
Speaker 2:And you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position because, as as alpha males which we probably both are and performance driven people, you, when you decide to try something that you, you probably know you're going to fail out, at the first time for sure, You're in a vulnerable position and but I think that's so important, especially for for for strong men and men in general, to show that vulnerability, to show to others I'm not perfect, I'm not good at it, and I think we need to have those life experiences that humble us, because that's really what puts us in the position and tames the ego a little bit and basically says to us you're not perfect and you never will be, but as long as you're trying, I'll give you credit for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And I just love the fact that you put it out there, like, hey, getting a 58 on a test that can crush somebody, right, yeah. But for you to still be there and say, hey, you put the effort in and hey, it happens, you had a bad day. You just handle certain situations that are seen as failure or seen as moments of rejection or losses. Just handle those things better, knowing that, hey, the effort was what I was worried about. Anyway, I already feel good, I've already accomplished it. Now, like you said, hey, eventually, you know you definitely want some results, right. But to attach your identity to the outcome, to the output, it's a dangerous game, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that identity becomes cemented then, like it's fully cemented, and I would much rather be known for someone who you know, I I mean, don't get me wrong, I, I like results too, but at the same time I want I want people once again we talk about that accountability thing I want people to say you know what? He gives it his all, all that every time, regardless of the outcome. He always puts 100 to 100 and and and that's what I would rather be known for. And even when I coach, those are the kind of kids I wanted on my team. For sure. It's like I know they're not the best athlete out there, but, man, you gotta, you gotta, have that kid on your team because everyone else around them gets better because of them and they make others better so 100 quinn, where can people continue to follow your journey, continue to follow your movement?
Speaker 1:I do think this is very important, a very important movement.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So the podcast Effort Over Results podcast it's on YouTube, just search Effort Over Results. It's also on Spotify and Apple, so you can get them all there. My website is EffortOverResultscom. You can't mistake that. Instagram effortoverresultscom Can't mistake that. Uh. Instagram effort over results Can't mistake that. Uh and I.
Speaker 2:I had a Twitter going, but I just find Twitter doesn't really work for this space very well and so I took it down because it wasn't really gaining any traction and I and it was hard to manage all these different socials. So I tend to focus on I obviously focus on the podcast the most. The website basically promotes the podcast itself and then the Instagram. The Instagram is interesting and I know thank you for going and checking that out. But the Instagram, I wanted it to be more of just a inspirational, motivational type thing. I didn't want my face on there. I didn't want you know it to be me just talking about you know, different platitudes and so forth. I wanted it to be, um, just great inspirational messages, right, that people can look at whether I've reposted them from someone else or it's something that I came up with and and threw up on there. I wanted, I wanted people to read it and go. Okay, I'm not failing, that's good. Okay, I just have to put you know, take the first step. And and that's really what all people should feel is is from from childhood through, you know, to their old age is like it's just put in the effort each day, get a little bit better every day, and if you have bad days where you don't have the energy, that's okay. You'll find it a different day.
Speaker 2:It's it's what frustrates me the most are people who just have given up completely and they don't put in any effort, like literally they're just gaming 24, seven, eating Cheetos in their parents' basement. It's like the world the world is right now is so much more ripe for people to be successful than it was when I was, you know, 20, because you have literally a world of information at your fingertips. Um, everything that I learned about podcasting and all this stuff I got from the internet, because you have literally a world of information at your fingertips. Everything that I learned about podcasting and all this stuff I got from the internet. I got from chat, gpt and that's what.
Speaker 2:That's what's out there and that's what I tell my kids. You I don't don't tell them, you can be anything you want, cause I think that's that's. I don't like that message. I just tell them you want to learn something, go learn it, right, and so it's. And that's that's the message I'm trying to get out there and what I think we, especially where kids are involved you know if you have students, um, you know if you're a teacher or you're a coach or, once again, you're a parent, stop praising them only for the result. Praise them for the work they put in and and and you, you, you'll be amazed at the, at the result. You'll be amazed at the results of. You know how that turns out. So I thank you for this opportunity, man. It's been awesome and I and I love it, and I, if we, if we got to talking about my injuries, it would take another hour because there was. I've had both hips replaced and ACL reconstruct, five shoulder surgeries, a wrist surgery and a spleen taken out at the Rose bowl.
Speaker 1:So we'll talk about that a different day. Yeah, 100%, yeah, definitely. You know when the book releases, I would love to have you back on and we talk a little bit about it. I know you know, especially a book to really deep dive in some of these topics, right, I think it'd be very dope to have that conversation. So we'd love to have you back on, and especially when their book drops excellent.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man. I appreciate it today and, and and you know what I think we're gonna have you on the show too. 100, I would love it.
Speaker 1:I would love it. Well, everybody, as you know, right playing injured. Go follow quinn uh at effort over results on instagram. Go to effort over resultscom. Effort over results with uh, with uh Quinn on YouTube um, effort over results everywhere. So, quinn, we appreciate you. Thank you, sir, have a great. I love it.
