We love talking about grit.
Push through. Do not quit. Grind it out. Show up when it is hard. Every leadership book, every keynote, every Instagram post with a mountain in the background tells the same message: the strong survive because they endure.
And look, I believe that. I ran 58 marathons in 58 consecutive days. I am not going to sit here and tell you toughness does not matter.
But I am going to tell you it is not enough on its own.
Because you need to be tough AND caring. And the most powerful thing I have ever done as a leader, a coach, and a son had nothing to do with endurance. It had to do with four words from my dad at a petrol station at 10pm on a Saturday night.
One Night, Two Lessons
In March 2022, I organised a 12-hour overnight walk through Brisbane. Twenty blokes from my coaching program. 6pm to 6am. We were raising money for Prostate Cancer Australia, a cause that had become personal after my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer during my wedding week.
He had been in pain for a while but had not done anything about it. Classic bloke. It got so bad during the wedding that he had to go to hospital because he could not go for a leak. They ran the scans and did the blood tests, but he did not get the results until a few days later when he was back in Brisbane. Amy and I were on our honeymoon when he called to tell us. Prostate cancer. He had sat through an entire wedding week in pain and had not said a word. That is who he is.
So when I was putting this walk together, months after his surgery, I invited him. Just said, "Hey Dad, come walk with us."
What happened that night taught me two lessons about leadership that I have carried into every coaching conversation since.
Lesson One: What Happens When There Is No Standard
About halfway through the walk, we hit Mt Coot-tha. Someone suggested a shortcut down a hill. We all followed. Halfway down, we hit a locked gate and a fence. Dead end. Which meant we had to turn around and walk all the way back up the hill we had just come down.
The reaction was immediate. People were filthy. "I knew this was going to happen." Some blokes just started walking in whatever direction they thought was fastest. Others were trying to climb the fence. A couple of guys sat down and refused to move until someone went to the servo for supplies.
The group splintered in about ten minutes.
And here is the thing. It was not a big deal. It was a wrong turn. An extra twenty minutes of walking. But when you are six hours in, you are fatigued, and your hips are screaming, small problems get amplified. And in that moment, there was no agreed standard for how we would handle adversity together.
I should have set it before we started. "When it gets hard, and it will, here is how we operate. We stay together. We communicate. We do not fracture." I did not do that. I had not clarified the standard, so when adversity hit, everyone defaulted to what felt best for them individually rather than what was best for the group.
That is what happens in teams, in businesses, in families. Without a shared standard, people do not fall apart because they are weak. They fall apart because no one told them how to be strong together. This is exactly what I talk about in what corporations get wrong about building tough teams.
Lesson Two: The Power of the Invitation
Now let me tell you what happened at the start of that same night.
My dad drove two hours down from Toowoomba. When he rocked up, I could see it straight away. He was nervous. Quiet. He is a good man, but he goes quiet in new situations. Twenty blokes he had never met, and he is just standing there.
I introduced him to a few of the guys, but the blokes did most of the work themselves. They just came up, shook his hand, started having a chat. And the moment those conversations kicked in, he lit up. You could see it in his face.
He had planned to walk a couple of Ks. Half an hour, tops.
One hour turned into two. Two turned into three. Nearly four.
I could see his back aching. He was lagging behind. This is a man who was still recovering from prostate surgery. But he just kept going. I kept saying, "Whenever you are ready, Dad. That is fine."
He did not stop.
About four hours in, near the Regatta Hotel, he finally pulled up. He walked over, gave me a big hug, and said four words:
"Thank you for that."
Called an Uber and left. I had eight hours still ahead of me. But watching him push himself that night, when it would have been so easy for him to call it after the first hour, that carried me through every one of them.
The Skill No One Talks About
My dad did not wake up that morning planning to walk for four hours through Brisbane in pain. He did not have some deep well of motivation. He was not trying to prove anything.
He showed up because someone he loved said, "Come be part of this."
That is it. The invitation was the catalyst.
And this is what I see constantly with the men I coach. High-performing blokes, 30 to 50, successful by every external measure. But when I ask them, "Who have you actually invited into your world? Who knows what you are really going through? Who have you said 'I want you there' to?" the answer is almost always no one.
We are terrible at this as men. We wait for people to ask. We assume they know they are welcome. We think the door is obviously open.
It is not.
Look at the contrast from that one night. At Mt Coot-tha, I did not set the standard or extend the invitation to face hard things together, and the group fractured. With my dad, I simply said "come walk with us", and a man recovering from surgery pushed himself further than either of us thought he could.
Same night. Same walk. Two completely different outcomes. The only variable was the invitation.
What This Has to Do With Your Life
In my Core 4 framework, Strong Body, Calm Mind, Clear Purpose, Confident Life, this sits squarely in Confident Life. And not the version of confidence most people imagine, which is standing on a stage or walking into a room like you own it.
Real confidence is the courage to be seen. To let people in. To say "I need you in this" or "I want you here" when every instinct tells you to just handle it yourself.
My dad sat through an entire wedding week in pain and did not say a word so he would not be a burden. That is the version of toughness most men default to: quiet, self-contained, never wanting to impose. And I love him for it. But when he accepted my invitation to walk, something shifted. He was not just enduring anymore. He was participating. He was part of something. And that is what lit him up.
Standards, not motivation. That is what I teach.
My dad did not need a motivational speech that night. He needed an invitation and a standard that said, "You are welcome here, go at your pace, and we will be alongside you." That was enough.
If you want to understand more about how to build mental resilience, it starts with this kind of connection.
The Question I Will Leave You With
So here is what I want you to think about today. Not "how do I get tougher?" or "how do I push through?" You already know how to do that. You have been doing it your whole life.
The better question is: who in your life needs the invitation?
Your mate who is going through something but has not said a word. Your dad who would probably love to be part of your world but would never ask. Your partner who is waiting for you to say "I need you in this" instead of "I am fine."
Pick up the phone. Send the text. Say the words.
"I want you there."
You might be surprised what happens when you do.
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*Lachlan Stuart is a Life Performance Coach, keynote speaker, and ultra-endurance athlete based in Brisbane, Australia. He helps high-performing men stop feeling scattered and start building lives of aligned intention through the Core 4 Framework: Strong Body, Calm Mind, Clear Purpose, and Confident Life. He completed 58 marathons in 58 consecutive days and has coached 1,200+ men to sustainable high performance.*
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