Video transcription
Good morning and welcome to Day 6 of your Smartstart habit building project. Yesterday I left you with the suggestion that if you are trying to build something new in your life, then engaging your Master hero to ask “what is important to me” is a helpful way to start your day. The Master THEN AFFIRMS this as an intention for your day.
And it is essential for you Master hero to affirm this. But he or she is not the one who is actually doing the work. This is where the hero with the LEAST “glamorous” name comes in – your Grunt. It’s up to your Grunt hero to do the actual work.
These heroes are all useless without one another. A Master without a Grunt is like a visionary without an audience, or a signpost with anyone to follow it. He or she is the sound of one hand clapping. On the other hand a grunt without the direction of the master is just wondering aimlessly and frivolously around. He or she can do things, but doesn’t know what is important to do.
Of your team of 4 Habit building heroes, it is probably the relationship between your Master and your Grunt that is most important. These heroes have a relationship that is characterised by what is called “reciprocity”, which just means mutual dependence. And like ANY relationship, it requires each party to relate to one another with mutual respect and empathy, and realisation of this inter-dependance.
Now you may be feeling like this is all a little abstract and overly-psychological, but let me tell you why this is important and VERY practical.
If your Master’s affirmation of what is important doesn’t have the buy-in of your Grunt then nothing is going to happen. Habit building projects are always initiated by your Master. He or she says “we’ll do this! We must do this. We can’t put this off any longer”. And bless them. We absolutely need our Master hero’s to make a stand for what is important to us. But the Master has to realise that they need the buy-in of the Grunt in order to turn a meaningful potential into an actual outcome.
So in practical terms the “authority” of your Master rests in the hands of your Grunt. The Grunt is the one who grants whatever authority your Master might have. This is true of all authentic leadership where the dignity of our personal autonomy is respected. When your Master and your Grunt come together to have a conversation about your habit building project; the Master asks the Grunt “are YOU prepared the price that is involved in building this habit? In service of the outcome we are looking for together”
And the Master has to ask this question with empathy and respect for the Grunt, because in SOME sense the Grunt is the most noble of the heroes. In Western culture it is the Grunt who is most commonly associated with the characteristics we identify with a hero. In particular that of sacrifice. He or she is the one who MAKES the sacrifice that is the essential price of any meaningful habit … “quest”. There is no way to build something fundamentally new, in yourself, without this sacrifice.
So I take my hat off now to ALL of our Grunt heroes. We are all in their debt for the price they are paying today in order for us to build our habits.