Surviving the Side Hustle

E139 - From Gridiron Grit to Boardroom Growth: Quinn Magnuson on Psychological Safety and Real Leadership

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 139

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What if the fastest route to better results starts with taking your eyes off the scoreboard? We sit down with Quinn Magnuson—former pro football player turned leadership and performance coach—to explore how shifting from a results-obsessed culture to an effort-first mindset builds resilient teams, stronger leaders, and sustainable performance.

Quinn’s story runs from a childhood in poverty to the CFL, then into classrooms, a franchise startup, and 15 years coaching businesses. Along the way, he learned that outcomes don’t define identity—daily controllables do. We unpack his Effort Over Results (EOR) framework and why psychological safety isn’t soft; it’s the hard edge of productivity. Expect clear guidance on setting expectations, making KPIs useful through better conversations, and coaching the gap between where people are and where you need them to be. We tackle the messy middle of change, too: people don’t hate change—they hate being changed. Quinn shows how to communicate the “why,” map the “how,” and support individuals so they can try, speak up, and improve without fear.

We also dive into burnout, sales slumps, youth development, and nonlinear careers. Whether you lead a startup, run a sales team, or manage a large org, you’ll get practical ways to recognize effort, reduce turnover, and unlock performance: behavioral scorecards, consistent coaching, learning loops, and culture signals that make Monday feel safe and meaningful. Quinn shares updates on the Effort Over Results podcast crossing 1,000 subscribers, his forthcoming book, and a bold money-back guarantee for U.S. clients ready to bring EOR into their companies.

If this conversation gives you a new lens on leadership, share it with a manager or teammate who needs it. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what effort will you recognize this week?

SPEAKER_01:

What's going on, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Surviving the Side Hustle. I'm super excited for this conversation today, and I hope you guys are eager to dive in as well because today we've got Quinn Magnuson. And on this episode, it's going to be awesome because Quinn is a former pro football player, turned leadership and performance coach. From the gridiron to the boardroom, Quinn has lived the highs of chasing greatness, but also the burnout and identity struggles that come with measuring success only by results. Today, he leads the effort over results movement, helping leaders, entrepreneurs, and athletes build resilience, grit, and purpose by focusing on the only thing that we can truly control our effort. So welcome to the show, Quinn Man. I'm excited to dive in. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm I'm doing okay. It's it's going well. It's a great day. It's another sunny day here in the Columbia Valley up here in British Columbia, Canada. So excited to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well, I'm excited to kind of dive into your background, your story. It sounds like you've gone through a lot of different things in life. So talk to me about really what's brought you through sports and brought you to here ultimately and kind of like where'd you where'd everything begin for you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I thought about I thought about what that story looks like, and and not to go into you know a great amount of detail because I really got the you know got the hour here. But you know, I basically my story started in poverty. Single mom had two kids already, my older brother and sister from her first marriage, and then she had me out of out of wedlock. Not that that matters, it seems to not matter as much these days, but back then it was a big deal. And and you know, she basically was on social assistance, which, you know, welfare for, you know, for lack of a better term, and and raised three kids. And, you know, me and my brother and sister all ended up, you know, doing well. My sister's been a teacher for 30 years. My brother um, you know, was in the educational administration and universities in the states, and then, you know, where I am today with business coaching and leading, and and I just, you know, I think about that journey and how sports, especially really, I think sports is really what kind of got me through all that. But the mentality shift, and this is what I want to talk about in a little more detail later, Rob, is is it's it's all about perspective. And I grew up, like I said, in a household where my mom thought everyone was out to get us, right? It was a very pessimistic, very, you know, what was me, the world's out to get us mentality. And I grew up with that. And it was very tough to shake that. In fact, I really only started to shake that mentality probably into my 30s. I'm 54 now. But, you know, getting married and having kids of my own, I realized that I couldn't, I couldn't continue on with that mentality because it really gets you nowhere. You have to kind of turn the mirror around and go, okay, well, I mean, I can't change what people are doing. I got to change, you know, my my own story. And so, you know, through sports, I did that. I grew up playing a lot of sports, a lot of hockey up here in Canada, obviously. Um, you know, played a lot of, you know, amateur baseball. And then I got into football in high school. And that's really where I found my love. That in track and field, I was actually a pretty good shot putter. And, you know, if you want to learn more about that, just ask me. But sports really guided me. And, you know, when I think about great leaders, and I I talk about this on my podcast a lot too, is you know, when you think back to your childhood, and you think about those teachers that you loved, you think about the coaches that you loved. Maybe it was an aunt or an uncle, you know, someone, someone who's older than you, that you just love being around, and they made you feel safe and they made you, they gave you confidence, right? Those are true leaders. And that's really what we need in the workplace today. And and, you know, I can expouse on that later. But I had a few, not having a father around, father was not around at all, didn't was out of the picture the day I was born. You know, I was looking for male role models. I mean, as any young boy would do. And for me, it was, it was, it was a couple of teachers growing up. It was coaches growing up, most specifically my track coach uh towards the end of high school, who, you know, basically gave me the confidence I needed, built up my strength both physically and mentally, and which led to, you know, being a member of Team Canada, first shot put in discus, you know, national junior champion, under-20 champion, 1988 through 90, going to world championships in those years, and then ultimately getting a scholarship to Washington State University. And I look back on this and I think about the story of people who, you know, came from nothing and still were able to, you know, earn that scholarship, still make a, you know, a professional team. I played professionally up here in Canada at CFL. And I look back and I go, like, how did that happen? Because in sports today, it's it's like sports have become very elitist today, and it's very tough for kids with no money to you know even get involved in sports. Back then it might have been a little bit easier, but it it really was those coaches and teachers and older people in my life that that honed who I was. But the threefold, and I'll wrap this up, but the threefold sort of perspective that I have is that, you know, I grew up with nothing and the mentality of the world's out to get us. I had to fight through that because when I was in sports, it's like, listen, it's you against everyone else in a one-on-one and track and field, and in team sports, it's you and your teammates against the competition. And I had to learn resilience. I had to learn not to believe that, you know, everybody was out to get me and my family and so forth. So transition into that, it was really just lately in the last five years where I really started to espouse the effort over results mantra. And what I realized was the only things we can control are our attitude and effort. And that sounds cliche, but it's true. Day-to-day, consistent effort towards the things you want to achieve and let the rest, let God take care of the rest, really, because you can't control that. And so that's where EOR really, you know, came from. It came from learning that you gotta, you just gotta put in the work. Nothing's gonna get handed to you. Nothing's gonna, you know, just magically show up. And that's really just the way I've operated, you know, for the last 20, 30 years and especially in the last five.

SPEAKER_01:

So thank you for sharing all that. That's awesome stuff there. And I love the evolution of how things were going. Similar-ish, kind of my background as as I've kind of shared with you in the past, and people listening know, like the my sports was kind of like the gateway for me to get into everything, a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, not having my dad around as frequently as I would have liked. And yeah, it does, it does teach you a lot of things out there. And and I love what you had said that it was uh you had to switch that mentality so that you can kind of grow. And I feel like kind of having that chip on your shoulder can be beneficial in a lot of different situations and scenarios. But I feel like when you begin to shift from that like really, really good to trying to get into that great, I think you do need to flip that whole mindset onto it. And I love how you've kind of gone through that. But I'm kind of curious on so how did you land on like in the business world that that's who you're trying to kind of teach and and spread to? Like, like, why didn't you stick with athletes or are specifically like younger athletes and things like that? What made you kind of get into this leadership with businesses?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great question. And and and I've asked myself that question a few times. I it was funny. So when I went, I'll I'll go back a little bit to set it up. But when I when I went to Washington State University, I actually went there for broadcast communications. Never did get my degree because I got drafted into the CFL and I decided to forego my senior year to go and make money,$26,000 a year in the CFL. And the professional football up here ain't what it's like in the NFL, folks. But um, you know, I I when I got done playing um professionally, I was like, what am I gonna do? I don't have a degree. And my old high school coach was who was part of the uh the school, the school district here, he said, listen, he goes, get your education degree. He goes, I'll get you a job teaching, and then you can coach football, you know, while you're teaching. And I was like, okay, so finished my CFL career, went back to university at the age of 27 and got my education degree and I became a teacher. And it from 2000 to 2005, I was a high school teacher. I taught history and English and coached the football and track teams. And I loved it for the most part, but but here's another great story, Rob, of like the good luck, bad luck, who knows we've been talking about is the principal at that school said to me in my third year, he goes, you know, I don't think you're Catholic enough to teach in this school, which is an odd comment to make. And then I I kind of asked him a couple of questions and he goes, well, he goes, you know what? And he goes, I don't know, you know, where you'll be teaching in five years, but it won't be here. And I was like, okay, great. So I then I started questioning like, is this really what I want to do is be a teacher? And and and it's a tough job. I give all the whole props to teachers, man. Like, I would not want to be a teacher these days, but it kind of led me to deciding to own my own business. And so I went from being an educator and a teacher and a coach, helping young people grow, to now owning my own business, which was a complete departure because my family was not necessarily entrepreneurial. I didn't have a lot of business owners in my family helping me and guiding me through that. And my wife and I just took a chance on a franchise company called 1-800 Got Junk. You probably have heard of it. And we ended up being the franchise operators in our region for five years. And it was the it was the best baptism by fire I ever got when it came to, you know, understanding what it is to be a business owner. And so we did that. And then after five years, my body was just getting beat up, you know, being on the trucks every day, and and also the market had changed and economy had changed, and we were really struggling as a young family. We had two young kids at the time. And I ended up getting poached and got my job with a federal crown corporation here in Canada that basically, you know, coaches businesses and provides loans. And I ended up doing that for the next 15 years. And so what I've noticed, Rob, is that in that entire process, everything I've ever done has been around growing and coaching other people. Um, whether it be a high school teacher, coaching uh sports during high school, when we ran our own company, I hired a lot of the kids that I that I knew from the high school, and we grew them out to be great leaders in the community in terms of business. And then when I was at this most recent career job for 15 years, um, it was all about helping others get better as business owners. And that evolution seems awfully weird. And but the great lesson, and I I think people should take this away from it, and this will make a great soundbite, is that don't think that your path is gonna end where you are today. Don't think that just because you're a high school teacher, that you're gonna remain a high school teacher for 30 years. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. I think Gen Z is really changing the rules on all of that. They're trying all sorts of different things and trying to find out what really matters to them because there's purpose. When I grew up, and like this, we're talking about the 70s and 80s now, you were like, okay, I'm gonna go to high school, I'm gonna get a university degree, I'm gonna get a job, get married, have kids, retire. You know, there was a there was a timeline you had to follow. And Gen Z is really just breaking all those rules. They're not following any rules at all. And I love that about them. And that's kind of the way my life has been. It's like if you had told me in high school I was gonna end up working for Federal Crown Corporation as a business coach, I would have laughed. Even when I was in university, it's like I would have laughed. Then I got my teaching job thinking, okay, I'm teaching for 30 years. Didn't last five years. Owned my own business, which was kind of out of the blue. And then it led me to a career job that allowed my wife and I to live very well. Um, and now I'm in business coaching because everything that I do is about helping others get better. And so that's what that's what that whole journey looks like. But man, it is not a straight line. And I want to tell people if you're gonna experience detours and U-turns and roadblocks and speed bumps, it's all part of the journey. It's all part of where you're meant to be at any given time. You just gotta keep pushing forward.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, love that. I love all of that. That's some great stuff. And it kind of got some wheels spinning in my head. And I want to ask you a question and and apologize if it's a little bit of a curveball, but uh like so. I'm I'm hearing your story here, and and it's clearly one about resilience, but it's also about like adaptability and openness and and a lot of great attributes and values to what I think leads to a successful individual. Of all those things, any of those really stick out more so to you if you kind of reflect back on that, that you kind of like, yeah, this was probably the strongest trait that I had because it led me through or X, Y, and Z, I guess.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, looking back, Rob, I when I think about it, like I'm I'm not a risk taker, pretty conservative. Uh, don't like big change. And as you get older, you tend to like change even less. And but I think there were those, when I look back on those, you know, good luck, bad luck moments in my life, you know, that principle principle telling me I'm not Catholic enough, stuff like that, you know, the the our business, having to sell the business back to the franchise because, you know, and we had to leave it. And then I got this job, you know, with this crown corporation. And then even leaving there six months ago, all of that was kind of forced. And I wrote a LinkedIn post about this the other day about environment. And you and I talked about this on your on my show, about if you, if if your environment isn't working for you or you get too comfortable, you need a shakeup, whether it be forced change of environment or or you or you just do it yourself. And so a chosen change of environment might be, you know, just moving houses. It might be, might be deciding to move jobs because, you know, of whatever reason. But then there's forced changes where maybe you get fired. Okay, what do I do now? Or it's like the only job I can get is in the next state over. Okay, well, I guess I have to move a whole state over. Some people move across country. Something I love about Americans, they're willing to kind of move anywhere, college, everything. So it's kind of cool. But it's like you have to, I wasn't, I wasn't accepting of all that, but I was like, well, what else am I gonna do? I have to provide for my family. And going back to my story earlier, I realized that as much as you know, you mentioned the term chip on your shoulder, yeah, there was a little bit of that because I wanted to just prove people wrong that, you know, poor kid from, you know, the wrong side of the tracks could be successful. But it was more of a people-pleasing thing. I wanted people to like me. I wanted people to like our family because I felt growing up poor, everybody hated us, right? My mom had that feeling too. And so I didn't like change. I went through a lot of change. We moved a lot when I was a kid as well. But I look back, and now the answer I want to give you is this is that I want people to take away from this. Change is awesome. It's good. I know it sucks in the moment, but we really, when you when you pull that timeline out from let's say June 7th, 2025, and you pull it out five years behind and maybe five years ahead, and you look at it, you know, in retrospect later, you're gonna go, man, that was the best thing, best thing that ever happened to me. Because change forces you to adapt and it forces you to make make changes to yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually, that help you grow. And even some of those really negative moments in your life, maybe it was a death in the family, maybe it was um, you know, once again, losing a job that you love, things like that. Horrible in the moment, but over time, you adapt to the feelings and emotions you experience from that. And I think they always end up making you better. It always helps you change for the better. Don't get me wrong, you have some people out there that, you know, they have negative moments in their life, and it really does affect them so negatively that they, for lack of a better term, turn to the dark side. But yeah, it's I I didn't like change growing up, and now I'm like, let's move to BC, let's British Columbia, you know, let's let's start my own company for, you know, for fun because I want to help others. And that's what it's all about. It's just about not being too stuck in the moment and wallowing in the emotions and feelings of of the day or two or the week that where that negative thing is happening, and just going, okay, you know, what's what does the universe have planned for me here? What does God have planned for me? Okay, I'm gonna accept that and let's see where it goes, but you can't sit in one spot either. You gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other and and adapting and build that resilience up. And and like I said, more often than not, it is a positive.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Oh man, I love that. And I feel like I'm constantly sharing and talking about it, whether it's on social media with friends or clients, even that change is it's scary, it's uncomfortable, but it's something that needs to happen for their growth to actually occur. And the easiest way to get that change kind of rolling is getting outside of your comfort zone, trying new things and being open to difficult things and looking at failure as like a minor setback or just a transition and learning an experience and just kind of keep moving and going forward. So I'm curious to ask you when you're working with your clients in different organizations and such, where do you see a lot of people? What do you think is the biggest resistance to change or thing that you're constantly telling people, like, okay, you gotta kind of get over this or get over that? Is it mostly mindset or is it like specific skill or something? Or could you share a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, uh, I didn't say this, but I I read this on LinkedIn last year and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It's that people don't hate change. People hate being changed. And that's just a beautiful saying. Like, it's like, like, no, it's not about the change. It's not about, you know, maybe at work uh they introduced a new ERP system, now I gotta learn a whole new system. It's not about they what they're worried about is how does this affect me and my my job? Is my job still safe? Is this gonna create a lot more work for me, right? And so forth. It's not the change itself, it's how does it change them and and and their work-life balance or the way they operate, even even change in relationships. You know, it's it's not about the change there, but it's how does it affect you physically, mentally, and spiritually. And so that's what I've always kind of gone by. It's like, is it is it the change that's causing the problem for you, or do you fear the change in yourself? Because we don't like being changed physically, mentally, spiritually. We have our ways, we have our beliefs, we have our our our you know, daily routines. And people are afraid of that more than the actual change. Because if you, once again, if you look back, you pull that timeline out and you look back at um, you know, a change at work, a change in your life, you go, yeah, it sucked in the moment, really wasn't that bad. And actually, I got better because I learned something from it. And so that's that's where I think I think people can take a deep breath when change is happening in the workplace. But what I do tell business owners is I say, listen, if you are gonna, when when we were doing business at my last job and we were selling them on, for example, a new ERP system on a strategic plan, I said, you need to communicate to your staff why you're doing this and how it affects them individually. Because I said, otherwise they're they're gonna be scared, they're gonna feel psychologically unsafe, and you're gonna lose production and you're gonna lose efficiency because of those feelings that they're feeling. And this is where the workplace has changed in the last five to 10 years and continues to change, and why I bring EOR to workplaces. It's about psychological safety. If you take a look at Maslov's hierarchy of needs, it's level one. Level one is just, I just want to be able to go to work and feel safe. I want to, and I don't mean safe as that I'm gonna be attacked, but it it could be, it could be verbal abuse. It could be the way your boss treats you, the other coworkers treat you, you know, how failure is is handled in your workplace. Is it a results-only workplace as opposed to recognizing effort? Once again, why we preach EOR. That is what people need. Once they have that, then they can grow. But if they don't have level one psychological safety, you can't go anywhere from there. It is literally the foundation that every business, every family, every human interaction should be built upon. And so that's what we preach with EORs. Number one, psychological safety, number two, growth mindset, understanding there's going to be mistakes, there's gonna be some failures, but what do we learn from it? How do we get better from that? We don't chastise people for failures. We walk them through it and ask them how can we help them learn from it? And then the third thing being effort recognition. Let's recognize the effort that people put in in the workplace, on the field, in your family, in your relationships, instead of just what resulted, whether it be good or bad. You can have a great quarter at a workplace, a great year, revenues through the roof. But if that's all you focus on, the message you're sending to your workers is that's all we care about. On a football team, sports team, same thing. All we care about is championships. Hey, I want a championship too, but could you also recognize the hard work you know the team and my teammates put into this? Right? You burn people out when you focus on results only.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, beautifully said. I think that was uh perfect. And I want to go back to the first thing you were talking about there with the psychological safety and being able to communicate that. Because I imagine you got to be able to draw the line though somewhere, though, because you can't make it so safe where then there's like no pressure or stress to like actually get things done, right? So, like, how do you how do you assess where to draw that line and how do you even how do you even communicate that, I guess?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's all it is all in the messaging and the communication. And I don't want people to mistake, I have this problem all the time. With effort over results, people mistake it for being kumbaya woo-woo, let's hold hands around the fire kind of stuff, right? And it's really not, it's actually been proven to be highly effective. So, like Google, Patagonia, Pixar all have gone to more psychological safe workplaces. But some people will roll their eyes and hear those two words together and go, we're gonna cater to a bunch of snowflakes. And that's not what this is about. Psychological safety, literally, every human being needs it. And what psychological safety means is this it doesn't mean we aren't trying to achieve. It doesn't mean we don't have expectations of you as an employee. But the key is to make sure that you outline exactly what is expected of them. Give them the map, give them the instruction book, let them know how they're being, you know, assessed, how their performance reviews are being handled based on what they can control. And when they do achieve those, let's call them report card marks, right? In work and their performance reviews are good, you have to show them where they've succeeded, appreciate that effort that they put into that. But then also where where maybe they're not succeeding, you got to coach them through those areas, not just say, okay, well, you know, your scorecard basically says that your revenue this year was, you know, four out of five, but your collaboration with teammates was like a one. So, you know, because that becomes, once again, strictly the scorecard. It's the conversation around the KPI. And I had a beautiful conversation with uh with uh Jivi Saran the other day, and my episode with her just came out. She goes, it's not about the KPI, it's about the conversation around the KPI. We want metrics, we want something to shoot for, we want goals, we want to to you know, championships to shoot for. But if all you're talking about is just the result and just the championship and just the KPI, like I said, that's where people get burnt out. They don't feel like they can take chances, they can't be innovative and collaborative and and and make me make a mistake once in a while, they can't speak up in the workplace because there's that because their bosses just basically, you know, yell them, yell them down and just go, listen, do it this way, not that way. Well, you burn people out, you go through a lot of people, your staff turnovers are gonna be higher, and you're not gonna get very much productivity because people are gonna work in a box. And that's not where corporations and companies and even small businesses succeed. They succeed with with people who feel that safety first so they can be themselves and that they can be productive. People want to be productive. And I know that a lot of boomer owners are, you know, kind of ticked at Gen Z because they say, well, Gen Z has no work ethic. No, they have a work ethic, but they're only going to work hard for stuff that they believe in and understand why they're doing it. It's different with, like I said, Rob, when I was a kid, you know, it's like, here, here's your job, do it, or else you don't have a job or you don't get paid. You want overtime, you have to earn overtime. Now nobody wants overtime because they want work-life balance. But Gen Z and the younger generations, all they want to know is, okay, why am I here? What specifically is my job? What's the purpose? How do how do I fit into this whole big picture of the company? And do I feel safe enough to come to work on Mondays, having not having the Sunday scaries to be productive? Same thing with a classroom. You have an unsafe classroom where kids are being bullied behind the teacher's back, you're not gonna get anything out of those kids. None of them. Same thing with the team. If you have players bullying the other players and the coach lets them get away with it, you're not gonna have a good team. Everywhere. Families, everything, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's so true. Because you can't, like, yeah, you gotta get the more buy-in, you gotta be able to communicate a lot clearer. And I love, I love what you're saying there. And but I'm curious because so you're so somebody is say they are super focused and all they've been aligned on is the results and they're tracking it and they're struggling to get through and they're starting to get kind of burnt out. How do they identify or at least, or how do they even begin to shift out if they do say, hey, maybe I am plateauing, maybe I am burning out. What do I do? Like, what's the first thing you can do? Because you're probably feeling stuck if you're in that situation.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I would I would answer that in a couple different ways. One is, I mean, okay, how long have you been working at this? Number one, you get people who are who are, my daughter, for example, if she gets frustrated quickly, sorry, in the past, she's much better now, but she would get frustrated quickly and just quit and move on to the next thing. I talk about it in my book. She had a very much a results mindset, not effort mindset. So she was naturally good at everything and she would try something, and if she was good at it, oh, I love this. I love this thing I'm good at. But as soon as she came up against a brick wall, even if it was in the first day, yeah, I don't like this anymore, and she moves on. That's what happens when you have a results mindset, not a fixed mindset, right? Well, what I would say to people who, you know, have been, if you've been working at something for a long time, okay, whether that be in the gym, you've plateaued, whether that be, you know, in the workplace, you've plateaued, or you're just not getting anywhere and you feel like you're spinning your tires, you're not learning much. Okay, so first of all, how long have you been working at this? Two, I would say, okay, what are the different angles you've you've gone at this with and who have you consulted to maybe get different perspectives on how you can do this differently? So let's stay in the gym. You and I, let's stay in the gym. If I hit a plateau and you're my personal trainer, you're probably gonna change up my workouts, you're gonna change the loads, you're gonna change the frequency, you're gonna change the diet, the nutrition. And you try all sorts of different recipes to find what works for me. And if you still keep hitting plateaus and something that you're trying to achieve, now, okay, in the gym, you can't, you there's a lot of variables you can play with. But if you keep hitting a plateau in something else, like, you know, just out in society or personally or even in the workplace, you have to take a look at the environment around you. What is it something in the environment externally that's slowing you down? Is it something internally that's slowing you down in terms of you know being able to keep your mind open to new ideas? But don't get me wrong, at some point in time, there are certain endeavors that people go after that, you know, one, two, six years, and they're just not getting getting it. They're just not okay, maybe at that point it's time to say, is this for me? There's a story that Damon Lemby told me on on my podcast. He broke he came on and he said there was uh a guy who went through astronaut training with NASA, and he went through it, went through it, failed, failed, failed. They basically, he he was 32 years old. They basically kept saying, I'm like, you know what, we really don't think this is for you. Why don't you work in tech? Why don't you work, you know, with the teams here or whatever? He can't he got it in, I think it was like his ninth try or something. And what that proves is that he had a growth mindset saying, I haven't achieved what I want to achieve, dot, dot, dot, yet. And he kept going at it because it was important to him. And he eventually, and he became one of one of the one of the best team members on the on NASA's astronaut team. And I don't, I don't have all the details exactly, but the story was this person never gave up. But we give up too soon. I I think, I think the one thing with younger people today under the age of 25 is that they do tend to, you know, give up on jobs, give up on relationships, give up on on things too quickly. And that's what I'm trying to preach to all ages, really, is about that resilience you get from understanding. It's not about the result you're trying to achieve. It's just the day-to-day effort you put in towards it and celebrate the little wins along the way because I never did that growing up at all. If I didn't win, it was a loss. If I didn't achieve, I was a failure. If I didn't win a championship or win that meet or whatever it was, it was horrible. I finally, after 50 years, figured it out.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm listening to you with what the astronaut story and all these other things. So I'm trying to kind of determine. So like if I am speaking to somebody who is younger and they are kind of shifting, maybe they're taking different classes and they're kind of flipping flopping before they kind of get into it. Like, is is it where where or when do you tell them to like, okay, you got to keep going a little bit more? Because they might also be kind of trying to save time, right? Like, hey, I'm not really good at this. Let me find something that I might be slightly better at and then allocate more time to that. Because so I feel like it can kind of be difficult both sides there.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Or or it's a relationships. And I I found my my son and daughter are 25 and 23. And they they even say it themselves. Like everybody's in a situationship now. And basically it's like, yeah, because I don't want to commit because I don't want to waste time with someone I don't think I'll spend the rest of my life with. It's it's this weird mentality that Gen Z has that it's like, listen, I'm giving you, I'm giving you one date or a set of text messages to prove yourself to me, and then otherwise it's over. And I'm like, oh my God, you kids. Anyway, I would say there's there's two mistakes, and we made them, my wife and I made them, two mistakes that parents make. One for sure, is that we think that because we grew up in uh in an era and a generation of of that life, that life timeline of, well, when you're done high school, you gotta go to university, right? That's gotta go. Sorry. Getting a four-year degree doesn't mean anything other than you you proved you could finish something. Now, if you're an engineer, you're a doctor, okay, you obviously need the degree to if you want to go into that particular profession. I don't want any doctors out there doing surgeries without a degree. But let them let them figure it out. If they're 19 and they don't know what college or university they want to go to, give them a year off after high school. I preach highly that kids after high school should just take a year off. You've been in an instant educational institution for 30, and I was a teacher, 13 years, kindergarten to 12. Take a break. Go travel, try, or just work for you know a year and learn what be what it's like to work, right? Truly work. Try a bunch of different things. And then if you want to go to university, you better make sure that it's because you want to truly go to university, not because your parents told you to. And I know I'm gonna get a lot of crap from a lot of parents saying, well, if I tell my kid they're going to university, they're going to university. Okay, fine, that's the way you operate. But you're potentially wasting thousands of dollars on a kid that doesn't really want to be there and they don't know what they want to do. How many of you and your friends, when you were in university, go, Yeah, I don't know if sociology is my thing. Maybe I should go into physiotherapy or maybe I should try this. It's a small percentage that enter university and end up leaving with the degree they were going in for. Right? So I would suggest that as leaders of younger people, whether it be a coach, a teacher, a parent, um, an employer, give them a little bit of time to try and figure it out for themselves because in the end, you're just you're you're you're battling a stubborn creature. The frontal cortex has not been developed yet under the age of 25, and they haven't figured out what they want to do with their lives. 30% of people under the age of 30 are still living at home these days, Rob. That statistic just came out this year. And and it's because they don't know, they kind of don't know what they want to do yet. Not on not to mention the fact it's really expensive to try and find your own place. But man, you just gotta give them some time. And and I was not like that. I'm preaching like I know everything. This came on two years ago, I figured this out, and and it changed my kids' lives because they finally felt no pressure. I still want them to move forward, don't get me wrong. I still want you to make an effort. And I don't think we should let young people off the hook in terms of effort, but I'm less worried about the result. I just want to see you pushing towards something, anything. Then I know at least you're on the right track.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I love that because that kind of just goes into what I'm, I wouldn't, I I guess I could say I'm pretty passionate about is being decisive, like making a decision and kind of sticking through it. Like if it's the wrong decision, then you can change because there is a lot of availability out there, but kind of going through it. I know a couple friends who are just like constantly on the dating apps and they're there's one little thing, oh, I don't like the way that person's nose is next. Oh, I don't like how that is next. But they don't ever give it a chance or put anything into it. So then they're so indecisive with everything that nothing ever gets done. It's the short attention span.

SPEAKER_00:

It's and and that's just what social media has done to millennials and Gen Zs. And then now it's done it to the older crowd too. It's like we all have short attention spans. I don't have time for this. You have a crooked nose, bye. Red flag, right? Or or you spelled something wrong in a text message to me. Red flag, bye, you're gone. Come on, people, give it a break. Like, like let people be themselves, meet with them. So sorry, now I'm my dad.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, I like it. Um so okay, going through recapping, kind of going through life, you sports, you um sports was a huge thing. You kind of got into the teaching uh teaching first, then you were franchising, and then from franchising, you got into the business coaching, and now you've got your own business. Who are the people that you're working with, or who gets the best results or benefits the most from what you are teaching and sharing with the world? Are there bigger organizations where you're coming in and kind of helping clean up different teams and leaders on the teams, or are you working with smaller businesses, or is it like solopreneur kind of thing? Who gets the most out of hearing what you're sharing?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I mean, like the concept of effort or results really applies to any business, whether you're a startup or or large corporation. What I what I the groups that I really do want to work with, though, is the leadership teams. Um, because once again, we're trying to create that that psychological safety in the workplace so we can develop growth mindset, ultimately effort recognition and then productivity and profit and profitability too. There is profitability in this. And so the companies that I work with is I'm working with the CEO of the C-suite. In smaller corporations, maybe I'm just working with a leadership team, which is maybe the owner and a few managers. Smaller businesses, I'm working with the owner and maybe one or two managers or supervisors. When you get down to the solopreneurs or the entrepreneurs who are really just running the company on their own and they don't have a right-hand person, I'm working with them to understand what EOR and EOR isn't new, it's just the label I've given it. The concept of allowing people to work and recognizing their effort and and not being so results obsessed is not necessarily new. Like I said, Google did this with the Aristotle project 15 years ago. It's it's about getting them to because, well, let me put it this way, Rob. Your people, all AI aside, your people, your employees, are literally the lifeblood of your company. Whether you have four employees or 400 employees, if you have employees that don't, that don't feel that that's that once again, safety sounds weak, but if they don't feel like they they're just comfortable coming to work and that they're happy to go to work, they're not gonna be productive. They're literally gonna do just enough to not be in trouble. You know what I'm saying? How many, how many jobs did you have when you were younger? And I know you're not very old, but for me, it's like, hey, I'm just gonna do enough work to stay out of trouble. And I because I know the guy next to me was really slacking, right? And and but you wanna you wanna develop this environment where here's a here's a great example. My daughter worked for works for a company, still works for the company, and she loves it there. I said, what is it that they do that that you love so much about? She's in construction, actually. And and she goes, she goes, I totally messed up on the project last week, screwed up a door frame where the door wouldn't even shut. And she was, you know, a year in or whatever. And her supervisor just goes, hey, that's okay, come over here, let me show you. And she he he goes, I want and he coached her through pulling it apart, showing her the angles and whatever. And she goes, I just was so happy that he didn't just say, you know what, screw it, go do something else, I'll take care of this, right? Like your dad would do to you when you're younger, right? Like, listen, just put the tool down, I'll handle this for you. Um, he didn't do that. He actually took the time to show her how to do it properly and and showed her where her mistake was. So she learned from that. She hasn't made a mistake in that area since, right? And that's what you want, that's what I'm trying to bring with EOR. It's just a it's just a culture of okay, it's okay to fail, it's okay to make mistakes as long as you're pushing and putting that effort in, and I can see you're putting the effort in. Another great example of this: salespeople. This is where it works really well. Companies that have a lot of sales, sales team members, okay? So whether it be external or internal sales, it's like, and I was in this, you had two quarters, just a drought, complete drought. Like you're you're batting zero. Haven't had any sales in in six months. And you know your target is what what it is at the end of the year. My leader didn't reflect on what my target was at the end of the year, didn't reflect on the fact that I hadn't hit my target in two months in six months. He said, you know what, Quinn? He goes, the economy's really weak right now. He goes, a lot of your colleagues are going through this. I can see you're putting in, like in the CRM, putting in all the meeting times and you're going out there and you're busting your butt. That's all you can do. He goes, Don't worry, the results will come later. He goes, I know you're I know you're working hard. So he goes, once you get that first one under your belt, he goes, they'll start rolling in. And I was like, Oh, thank you. Right? And I just felt, okay, the put the pressure's off, at least from my leader, to say, why didn't you get get you know your quota this month? And it made me work harder, Rob, because I knew I could work harder to even if I and even if I failed, he recognized the work I was putting in. And that's really what EOR is all about. On the on the sports fields, okay, coaches, once again, we all want to win games, we all want to win championships. That's great. But if your message to your team when you didn't win a game is how you didn't win the game and all the things the team did wrong, now you can say, I didn't see a lot of effort out there. That's okay. That's an effort message. But if you're if you basically are just just her like like beating down on these poor 10-year-old hockey players or football players because they didn't win the game, stick to messaging that's gonna make them feel better for next game because otherwise, especially with young kids, they just shut down and they tune out right away. Championship teams, they talk about the effort that was put in. They're still striving for a Super Bowl, for a Stanley Cup, for whatever, but they talk about the the camaraderie and the culture and the teamwork together. In the classroom, if I tell a kid who gets 47% on a test, well, you failed another one. How's that kid gonna feel? And especially if they actually put effort in to studying for the test and still failed. Now they're like, well, screw it, I'm never gonna try again. Yep. It's all about messaging. It's it's not about not getting results, it's not about woo-woo kumbaya stuff. It is about just recognizing people and recognizing their effort. Now, if they're not giving the effort, yeah, okay, we have to have a different discussion.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, I love that too, because when you're talking about the sales a second ago, that reminded me of one of my teachers, and uh it was global honors in high school, and my my grade started slipping a little bit, little bit, little bit after I started the year off pretty fresh, and and she knew me from other classes and things like that. And she came to me when things were dropping and she came with me with like compassion, was like understanding, like, hey Rob, what's going on? And then I shared about like, hey, yeah, I've been cutting weight for wrestling and the season's really grueling. I'm dying, I'm not having enough time to study, I'm just exhausted. And then we worked together, and that always stuck with me. Shout out to Miss Gruner, she was the best ever. And but that showed me, like, oh, okay, like I can still get through this. It's not if she would have just came at me and just been like, Hey, you're you're failing again, like you got to pick it up or whatever. I probably would have turned me off and I would have probably ended up failing in that class. But turned it around, come lacrosse season, thankfully was a little bit more relaxed in my high school. And then I got to get back into studying a little bit better. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and business owners, you know what, I get it. I was a business owner myself, and I and I had bills to pay, and I had to make sure we broke even and made some profitability each month. And so you get stressed, and I get it. But try not to let that bleed into your day-to-day conversations with your employees and don't make all the conversations about how we didn't hit our targets this month. You know, like you've gotta like you've got to show that compassion and empathy because people, here's the example I want to give, Rob. And I go back to, and the reason why I keep bringing up teachers and students, coaches and athletes, employers, employees, and parents and kids is that think back to your childhood and go, who was my favorite coach, who is my favorite teacher, who's my favorite first employer, who, you know, not who's my favorite parent, but you know what I'm saying? It's like mom, but um, it's like they were it wasn't that that you learned a ton in that class. It wasn't because you won championships. It was because they treated you with respect. They cared about you, they showed some compassion and empathy, and they wanted to learn more about you than just, you know, whether you were a good athlete, whether you were a good student, whether you were, you know, um good employee. They wanted to learn more about you. And today's top employers are finding ways, even if you have 400 employees, okay, then you get people below you that have smaller teams to be those compassionate, empathetic leaders. And and especially in America, I'm in Canada, but especially in America, it's that it's it's basically it's dog eat dog, it's win at all cost mentality. And and that's just not going to cut it anymore. It can't. And it won't, it won't do it in any workplace in the world. It's the the 19s through 90s mentality of listen, do your job or else, sorry, okay, fine, I'll quit. Then you'll be left with nobody. But the companies that are showing the compassion, the empathy, having that psychologically safe workplace, they're the ones that are shooting through the roof. So this isn't kumbaya woo stuff. This is about profitability. And you can make lots of money having a culture like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Even if you just take a second, like you said, and just think about your favorite coaches and teachers and things like that, and just remember how it made you feel, you can understand how important the stuff is for businesses and things like that and bringing that through. So it's it's definitely true, real stuff that's making lasting impact and change and helping those better companies even exponentially get better by implementing these things like this. So, Quinn, I want to be courteous of our time here and I want to make sure that I kind of dive in because I know you've got some other things going on. I know you've got the podcast that you've got, Effort Over Results. So share a little bit about that. And you got any other projects that you're super excited about besides coaching and things?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so uh the EOR podcast, Effort Over Results, you can find it on YouTube and all the usual podcast channels. That's been going, we just hit a thousand subscribers today, which is which is kind of an awesome thing. But it's so funny because once once I saw that thing click over to a thousand, I was like, okay, back to zero again, right? Like, because like I don't I try not to look at the scoreboard anymore. Super proud we got there, but I also know that it's not where I want to stop. I want to keep going, right? So thousand subscribers on the EOR podcast. You can find us on social media, effort over results on Instagram, the same thing on TikTok. We actually got on TikTok, but it's basically just you know clips and shorts from the YouTube episodes. I have a book coming out sometime in the near future. It's basically completely down. We're just putting the last finishing touches on it. It'll basically, it'll be called Effort Over Results, the secret to grit growth, and greatness. And I'm just excited about that and just super excited that my wife and I had the opportunity to move out here to the mountains and I can clear my head and work with you know small entrepreneurs, solopreneurs up to large corporations and help them. But no new projects. I'm trying to stay focused. Um, I don't like getting distracted or letting my ego get the best of me. The only goal I have this year is to break 80 and golf, and we'll see if that happens. But other than that, I I just want people out there, your audience and my audience, to know that my goal with EOR is really just to make you and your company better, you and your classroom better, you and your sports team better. Really want to get into more keynote speaking. I've done a decent amount of it, but I definitely want to do more of it, either online or otherwise. So reach out to me at effortoverresults.com and we can go from there.

SPEAKER_01:

So the quickest place to get involved or touch base with you or ask you even a question would be effortoverresults.com and shooting you a message through there. Are you taking on new clients and new projects? If someone listening to this is like interested, like, hey, I gotta get this guy into my organization.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And in fact, um, what I did is I I said basically for the rest of 2025, for the year of 2025, um, any American clients that want to work with me and the EOR program, I basically, it's basically a money-back guarantee. I I said all you all I told companies, all you're gonna do is cover my expenses um to come down, work with your team. Um and if you if you don't get the results that we try to shoot for, and it's results, don't get me wrong, I still like results. If we if we don't get those metrics that we're trying to shoot for, you don't pay for the project. This is how much I believe in this. And and so if there's companies out there that are listening and you wanna have that chat, Quinn at effortoverresults.com or just go to the website, message me through there, because I want to get this message out to everybody that it's I think when you do something like this, it can't just be can't just be a philosophy. It can't just be a business model. It has to be something that you truly believe in so much that you would do it for free because you know how positively it affects others, and that's really what I feel about EOR.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and now that is a pretty attractive offer. So that's that's pretty awesome, and I'm excited and glad to hear that you're doing that. That's really cool. And I really appreciate you taking the time coming on today. I know busy and there's a lot of things going on in the world today, and having you being able to sit down and kind of chat with me, it's it's just awesome. I love hearing your story, getting a little bit deeper into it, and then also a lot of the different tips and stuff that you share. So, Quinn, I appreciate you, man.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks, Rob. I'm glad we got together now twice this week. And it's it's I know the results are going to be you know great. People are gonna love the two different episodes, and thanks for having me on the show. Of course, man. Appreciate you. And that's all we've got today, guys. Peace, peace, peace.