Jack Clark is the University of California's varsity rugby head coach. His teams have won 28 National Championships in 33 years. A key principle of Clark's teams and their culture is to: Practice Resiliency. Clark makes this happen by insisting his teams buy into, believe and act with a very straight forward attitude: "Entitled to nothing, grateful for everything."
Entitled is defined as: "believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment."
Grateful is defined as: "feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful."
A person's attitude towards events, other people and in the long run their life in general, is either one of entitlement or gratitude. The two attitudes cannot co-exist with respect to the same event. In an interview with Jan Stenker for Unconditionally Strong, Clark discussed the impact the principle "Entitled to nothing, grateful for everything" has had on his team's performance:
"I think what matters most — outside of talent — would probably be the culture of the team: developing a really resilient, embedded team culture around performance. It's like anything else: You've got to rep it. You've got to talk about it on day one and day five and in the middle of the season and at the end of the season.
Our mindset is how we filter our values and how we talk about them. I think it's important now, more than ever before, because there is a lot of entitlement. But we say our mindset is "entitled to nothing, grateful for everything."
We're really happy when people do something for us and somebody washes our clothes or somebody puts on a meal for us. Anything that we get, we feel really grateful for it, but we don't really think we're entitled to much.
I mean you ask how you become resilient. Well, that's kind of it. You don't expect much — not from the ref, not from the opposition. If you're playing into the wind in both halves, that's just how it is. We just don't expect to get a break. That makes you tougher in a way."
Coach Wooden said: "Too often we just want things to work out the way we want them to but we don't want to pay the price, so to speak, of doing the things that would help that become reality."Coach Clark and Coach Wooden believe in gratitude and hard work, not entitlement.
Do you approach your job with an attitude of entitlement or gratitude? What is the approach of your team members?
Entitled is defined as: "believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment."
Grateful is defined as: "feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful."
A person's attitude towards events, other people and in the long run their life in general, is either one of entitlement or gratitude. The two attitudes cannot co-exist with respect to the same event. In an interview with Jan Stenker for Unconditionally Strong, Clark discussed the impact the principle "Entitled to nothing, grateful for everything" has had on his team's performance:
"I think what matters most — outside of talent — would probably be the culture of the team: developing a really resilient, embedded team culture around performance. It's like anything else: You've got to rep it. You've got to talk about it on day one and day five and in the middle of the season and at the end of the season.
Our mindset is how we filter our values and how we talk about them. I think it's important now, more than ever before, because there is a lot of entitlement. But we say our mindset is "entitled to nothing, grateful for everything."
We're really happy when people do something for us and somebody washes our clothes or somebody puts on a meal for us. Anything that we get, we feel really grateful for it, but we don't really think we're entitled to much.
I mean you ask how you become resilient. Well, that's kind of it. You don't expect much — not from the ref, not from the opposition. If you're playing into the wind in both halves, that's just how it is. We just don't expect to get a break. That makes you tougher in a way."
Coach Wooden said: "Too often we just want things to work out the way we want them to but we don't want to pay the price, so to speak, of doing the things that would help that become reality."Coach Clark and Coach Wooden believe in gratitude and hard work, not entitlement.
Do you approach your job with an attitude of entitlement or gratitude? What is the approach of your team members?
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