Episode 159: The Simplicity and Benefits of Hard Work

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett. I'm so appreciative that you would take a moment or two to join me on this edition of "Around with Randall". Today we jump into a little bit of a conversation around something that many of us probably grew up with, at least the concept being discussed, and certainly things that we've done. And maybe this is a just a refresher, but it's the idea of the simplicity of hard work.

My son came home from one of his first basketball practices not very happy. Fact. One of the players on the team had spent an immense amount of time over the past nine months practicing in his driveway and has become the leading scorer on the team. And in that work he's learned how to dribble, how to change speed, and most importantly, how to make shots. And from a close distance at 10 years old you're just hoping the backboard doesn't break many of the times as the shots are more like throwing it rather than shooting it. But in this one boy's case he's really worked at it and it's shown. And what Jay and I, my son and I, sat down and chatted about was well that's hard work. That there's value in it. That people get better when they put in the hours. And what I have been just incredibly proud of, not that my son in three or four weeks has gotten immensely better, noticeable, parents asking questions what is going on, it's that he's out there every day for 45 minutes on our driveway shooting baskets, doing drills that he asked me about, tell me a couple drills that I can do to get better. It's become part of his daily routine. He's putting in the hard work.

I think of some clients that I work with and maybe the other side of the equation where we have some gift officers that we're struggling with to explain to them philanthropy. Philanthropy officers, gift officers, gift-getting, relationship-building activities is hard work. You have to put in the time, make the phone calls, go see people so much so that this idea of remote working, I'm not against but there are some things that have to be done in the office. There's a sense of camaraderie and you're, begin to see larger organizations pull their people back a little bit and still some flexibility, but having the conversation about how do we build a team. Well we've got to do that by working together. Even in my own life I look back at my childhood and into adolescence and then into becoming a young adult, I think back when I was in law school and at the time I had a job at a hotel three nights a week. I had a fellowship or an internship actually two running almost at the same time, and I was getting my masters in business while going to law school. I'm not sure I slept a whole lot in those three years. I look at what came out of it. I wonder. I can't imagine my life without those experiences, without putting in that hard work. It's been the catalyst for much of the things I am. So for to be able to do today hard work is something that for some comes very innately. For some this is not a bad thing. It's sometimes more of something we got to plan, got to work at. I'm not saying either one's better. It's probably easier if it's just built into you, but frankly, it's not built into me. I have to really work at hard work. I would much rather just sit and watch old movies, documentaries, history, read about history, and some of that's good but it doesn't get to me to where I need to go in my career, or with my relationships, or the things that are really important to me.

So why is hard work good for you, and I'm not just talking about outcome, Actually hard work is the process in which is more important than the outcome. There is a wonderful saying, it's not the destination it's the journey. It's what you get out of hard work that's really important. And yes, if you do it well you get some end results. But what is the process? Benefits of doing, and really contemplating, and digging in to doing the things that maybe aren't as fun but are going to make a difference, what are those differences? Well the first is, it sets a good example. Now I can't play basketball like I used to at now at 53. In fact I coach the kids teams, all of them, and I spend more time in post practice with icing down my knees and and taking some ibuprofen and trying to get my muscles going again. It's just not as easy when you get a little older and that's fine. But I think my kids know how hard I work here for my job. They see that because, in part, I need to do it. Part of it is a little bit innate. Part of it is I love what I do. Hard work is a example for others. If you're working in a group project and, or you are part of a small group and you're digging in, you are setting an example standard for which others can achieve.

Back to my son, we've had a couple of the kids in his school who are on the basketball team come up to him and go what are you doing because it's so noticeable in four weeks how much he's improved. And he started saying well I'm doing some drills. They're coming over to the house. They're doing them at home. All of a sudden the level of the team is changing. A good example, a second is it teaches sacrifice that really most things in life there's some people who are just purely gifted in certain areas and things come so easily and that's wonderful. But most things in life come from work. They come from what we get into what, we get what we put into it, and sacrifice is a part of that. If everything's easy then you really don't learn anything along the way. Sacrifice is about what am I willing to throw into this that gets me a result that I can live with or that I see improvement. It also teaches you resiliency in tough times.

We, as a country, have been through a pretty and certainly the Great Recession in the housing issues and debacle of 2008, 9, 10, 11, 12 were a blip but for the most part our country has gone through some pretty wonderful times over the last 20-25 years, not a lot of strife. And I think Covid kind of ended that. Now the economy is kind of all over the place. I think what happens is when you put in the time, when you put in the effort, when those difficult moments happen you kind of know how to deal with them, or at least you know to put your head down and get things done. If it's, you're a gift officer, hey I got goals, it's halfway through the year. I'm not where I need to be. What do I need to do? So the resiliency and kind of the planning comes from hard work that you learned in the journey of how to get to certain places. It teaches self discipline.

The one thing about my son and his practicing every day, I gave him the drills. I don't push him out on the driveway. I don't say to him hey it's time to go out do 45 minutes. I'll time you. I just kind of say hey did you do anything today? yep I was out there. He's learning what self-discipline is. By the way, something else we've noticed, which is true, I think of all of us he's getting other things done, too, much more easily from homework to his chores. There's less pushing and so it's just not in that moment and that particular activity of self-discipline. It's a little bit larger perspective of taking accountability for yourself. It teaches responsibility. All of a sudden along with self-discipline our son is doing the things that we need him to do, a lot. I mean, as I mentioned, it's incredible the last four weeks how many more things he's just taken ownership of. Nothing big, I mean he's 10. But we're not pushing on taking out the trash as much, and we're not pushing to get homework done as much, he's just getting them done. It also helps us build trust with others. I remember back in high school we had a AP US History Class and a project in that class where I was working with four people on a particular, you know, assignment. The unique thing about this assignment wa that to get our grade we all had to agree on how much work we put in, and the example that was used, and I'll use with you, is if the project was a B and we all did 25% if there were four of us then we all got a B, but if somebody did 50% of the work they'd get an A and not everybody else would get a B and the idea was, is, that everybody had to sign off on this. And the way I remember it and I think it's actually kind of true because of the result I did a lot of the work and we ended up getting that B or B+ whatever it was and I looked at the group and said I'm not taking that, I did most of the work. I did the hard work. This is an example of the opposite of engendering trust. My trust as I watched the project go was lessened by the other three people in my group because they weren't doing the same things I was. And in the end we had a big fight and I actually ended up winning and getting the A. Somebody else had to take a lower grade but the point was, is there wasn't any trust anymore at least for my part. I think as we went along in the project they trusted me. I don't think they were very happy with me afterwards.

It's also about self-actualization and self-determination, when you do hard work, the idea of stealing from Maslow, which I talk a lot about. Self-actualization, you feel good about who you are. You know who you are. Doesn't mean you can't improve, but you know what it takes to get to where you want to go, and you can look at yourself in the mirror and say I'm okay with that. If you work hard every day and that's the best you can do then you feel great about yourself and you also then have a sense of self-determination that you have more control of your life than you realize. Not 100% control, but you have more ability to control the things that are going on. All of these things are the why a hard work are important. Again, the journey not the destination. All the things that come by putting in hard work, even if it doesn't get you to your ultimate goal, if you put in the work these are things that come out of that effort. So naturally, that make you a better person.

So in our world today, I've talked about AP History in 11th grade. I've talked about my son's basketball program. I've talked about me going to law school. All those things are irrelevant in my current world, and in your world. So what are the things in philanthropy nonprofit work, or maybe just work in general, we can do that's hard work that are tactical? And I've got seven of them that you can control, that you can do, that are going to make a difference by putting in that extra effort and this is not just for gift officers, this is for leaders. This is for professionals. This is for students. This is, if my kids listen to it, these would be the seven I would coach them on, and by the way, seven that I try to teach my

children.

First, can you make that extra call. All of our lives require relationships, communications, whether that's just a greeting of hey I'm thinking about you, think you the world of you, thank you, gratitude to engagement. So in, let's say philanthropy work and you're a gift officer making that extra call per week to set up appointments get to see people. Maybe it's internally and you are in the infrastructure team, Finance, or database, whatever, are you getting all the things done, that extra call, that extra to-do, all those things are important. At Thanksgiving this year I had a few moments before I had to go pick up the turkey and all the food before family came to the house and I decided I was going to send a whole bunch of Happy Thanksgiving text messages. One extra call. Times I don't even know how many I did. It was my way of saying people that I care about clients, professional relationships, family friends. I care about you. I hope you're having a great Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for your existence in my life. One extra call. Did any of them, any of themselves make any big difference? No I'm sure they didn't but if you do that enough you build out stronger relationships.

Number two and three, very similar, get to wherever you're going to go need to be early and stay late. The early part's a challenge for me. I'm not a morning person. Sometimes it's a struggle. Staying late easy for me but what I've learned is that those that stay longer and show up earlier, even if they're not the most efficient, are the people who are working the hardest to get to where they need to go and then they get the benefit of all those other things I mentioned before, including better relationships and about leading the team and responsibility, all the things that come from the process. Just by showing up early and staying late, I've had clients as Chief development officers and gift officers who feel like their job's a little bit in question for things that weren't their fault. Leadership changes happen. People change employment. And my advice is always the same or at least starts the same. Make sure you're early. Make sure you stay late. Show people that you're dedicated and be effective and efficient when you're there early and staying late. You'd be surprised how simple that is, how much of a difference that makes. And that's hard work because that means you're sacrificing other time. Maybe it's just to sleep. Maybe it's increasing your commute home because there's more traffic on the road if you stay too long. Dedicate yourself to being present wherever you need to be, a little early, staying a little longer.

Number four is work a little bit on the weekends. I am the world's worst and I'll get to the personal here in a second, but I find myself working and sending out emails and just kind of getting some general things done every weekend. What I find is is that people then know that I'm dedicated to what their needs are. People email me and I'm like hey I'll get back to you, or every once in a while I'll take a phone call on a weekend because a client has an issue. I'm always trying to figure out how do I make myself a little bit more efficient. Some of that's just putting in time. Sometimes that's on the weekend. Now that's a balancing act. Busy places at home, multiple kids all going different directions, or relationship maybe with a significant other a spouse, someone that you care about, it's a balancing act. It's not perfect, but what I've learned is people do this, who do this, get a lot of credibility and that all stems from my dad. Every Saturday morning 8:00-8:15 he was walking out the door to his office till about 11:30. His people, the people he worked with, he owned the company, knew my dad was dedicated to them, to the company, to their success, so working a little bit on the weekend can build you a lot of credibility. Doesn't have to be a lot, have to be complicated, but that time will be noticed.

Number five, do what's necessary to make someone else better. In my world I think back to Mike Harper, the former CEO of RJR Nabisco and ConAgra here in Omaha, a donor that I had the privilege of working with. A philanthropist. I went the extra mile with him. Part of the reason was I wanted that relationship to be really, really strong. Part of it was Mike was just an amazing person and a good man, not perfect but a good person. By putting in that extra time on a personal level what I found was that he trusted me almost as much as anybody, and it allowed us to have conversations that frankly if I hadn't put in the time would have never happened. When you put time into someone else what you get out of it is trust, and trust is everything, particularly in philanthropy. But in most of our relationships that are something that's important. Put a little extra in. Yes that may mean sacrifice something else, but it pays big dividends.

Number six is teaching. I'll think about it from the context of boards. We, I work with a lot of clients whose nonprofit boards aren't where we need them. They have an old philosophy of hey I come to the meeting, we look at the finances, we have a mission moment, I eat my lunch, and I go. And the best practices is that we don't talk about a lot of finances in the meeting. There are a lot of of prescribed things that are sent ahead. What we're talking about is how we can execute on the mission, how board members can introduce us into their social circles, and what a strategy looks like from a governance perspective or an organizational perspective. This could be employees. This could be anything, that about me as a parent or as a coach, what is it that you can do to put in extra time to teach to move people towards what's best for everybody. That's not always easy. Can be frustrating sometimes. The hard work is in actual time. It's just swallowing your emotions and not biting back. So invest yourself as someone who can invest in people.

And then number seven is a subset of that. I would ask you, and I try to do this, in fact I have an email I'm going to respond to today coming out of the blue where someone's saying I need some help. I'm not a client but I know who you are, will you help me. I'm, as I get older, value mentoring more, and more, and more. In part, number one, because I realized how critical it was in my early career with some incredible people. Think about Mike Dempsey and and and Tom Pesci, in particular who really mentored early on in my life, outside of my mom and dad. And so what are you doing to help the next generation. Do you put yourself out there? That's all about leadership. We need great leaders and this could be outside of philanthropy and nonprofit work. We need them in the for-profit sector. We need in the political spectrum. We need great leadership. What is it that you can do to help someone grow, and if we do that more often then what we end up with is a better world in the future.

Seven things you can do. Take that extra moment in terms of a call or responsibility. Get things more engaged that you can control. Get there early and stay late. Work a little bit on the weekends. Really invest time with the relationships that are really critical for your success. Teach and and engage for best practice and as subset that number seven, mentor where possible. I don't want this to be in just for one minute it all about professional. This also includes the personal. I am kind of at this inflection point as with my book, with the company, with all things that I'm kind of doing that I don't want to forget what's truly important and that's what my legacy is truly going to be. It's my children, in the relationship with my wife, certainly with my sisters, and how I support my mom. So I have made conscious choices. The hard work I'm putting in. I've pulled back from boards, and from playing golf, and a lot of personal activity so that I can be a husband, and spend time with my wife, and Coach my kids teams, robotics, to being a part of the choir team, to certainly the Athletics that my kids are in, you know YMCA low-level, but just engaging with them. I gave up things for that, to do things with my mom now that my dad's gone. Those are all choices and they're hard work. It'd be much easier for me just to kind of come home and put my big fat backside on a chair. Doesn't happen most nights. Doesn't mean I got it right. Doesn't mean I'm perfect. But I've thought a lot about it, how we invest ourselves, in our personal life. In many ways echoes what we do at the office or in professional life. Are you putting yourself out there? That really is about building better relationships and working hard to do that. Don't get it, I swear, and I said say it all the time, I make more mistakes every day than most people do in a month, but I know what hard work looks like from a little boy up till now, and it's really paid dividends, and it's something we can all buy into. Two quotes to end this kind of thought process with one is from Estes Lauder: "I never dreamt of success, I worked for it." I love that because I'm all for dreaming but if there's no work to it then it's just all it is is a dream and never comes to fruition. Mahatma Ghandi said something that was also critically important: "the future depends on what you do today." All of us can get better, all of us can work hard, and we can make those changes very quickly if we choose to. There's value in the simplicity of hard work. As you look around your daily life I hope you can think about the ways you can dig in and work incredibly hard to get to where you want to go.

Don't forget check out the blogs at Halletphilanthropy.com. Get an RSS feed right to you. Comes every two day or every, twice a week, excuse me every Tuesday and Thursday. And if you'd like to reach out to me that's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. I really appreciate your time this podcast is my classroom. Not sure how many students are in it by design but what I know is I enjoy doing it because I hope it's helpful to people. I hope people feel like they get something out of it to make their life a little bit better place and our nonprofit World in particular needs this. Remember my all-time favorite saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. We went a couple minutes longer today. I did a little extra hard work and I apologize. But what I know is that you're working hard. If you're working hard you are someone who's making things happen for the people and things in your community that are wondering what happened, and that is a difference maker. And I appreciate what you do even if it's not my community, you're doing it for someone or for something that needs you and I hope you feel that need, know how important it is. I'll look forward to seeing you next time right back here on the next edition, another edition, of "Around with Randall." Don't forget, make it a great day.