The Hard Part Is Loving The Hard Part

There’s a charming video that went viral recently, showing Coach Cory Edwards giving his Little League team a pep talk as they were minutes away from losing the National Championships 11-2.

“Hey, listen, no matter what happens, you have to hold your head up. You have to not get on each other. You have to have good body language. Those things are important. You have to stay mentally tough. When it gets tough, you get tougher. You understand?”

He didn’t try to cheer the boys up. Nor did he try to tell them they are winners and that everything is peachy keen. 

Sure, they were upset they didn’t clinch the trophy, but think of all the joy they experienced in the process of getting to the finals. That’s where the real power comes from.

Let’s call it “everyday joy.” Not the joy of winning all season, but the day-to-day joy of playing.

Everyone wants to play, win, be the best. But even for the GOATs, winning is infrequent. Most of the time is spent practicing. Preparing. Tripping. Falling. Healing. Learning. Getting back up. And doing it all over again. 

The trickiest part of any coach’s job is creating a culture of everyday joy in their team. It’s the coach who is responsible for creating the conditions that make their players want to show up to the diamond and want to play – rain or shine, win, lose, or draw.

And that’s where leaders have the greatest opportunity to shape their team’s experience. Because if winning is the only thing your culture celebrates, what are people supposed to feel during the other 95% of their lives?

Everyday joy is not a group hug; it’s not about feeling good for its own sake; it’s about finding meaning through friction, hardship, and setbacks. Nobody gets to do something worth a damn for free. 

The people who open their door to difficulty, invite it in and offer it a place to stay for a while, don’t just learn to live with it. They learn to love it. They learn to love how it transforms them. How it strengthens them. How it makes them see the world differently. 

As Churchill said: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

This is what real coaching is.

The hard part is… getting your team to find joy in the hard part. A much greater gift than any trophy.