EVERYONE IS A hero when it’s seventy degrees and sunny. Unfortunately, that’s not when you need them. We need great teammates and great team leaders when it’s not! Plus, we have very few “seventy degrees and sunny” days; when everything goes exactly as we had planned. We don’t control all the variables that would make a typical game or workday perfect. We never control the heat, the cold, the rain, the sun. We don’t control an unexpected request from a client in Asia right before we are planning to leave for home or the amount of time our newborn baby slept through the night before our biggest presentation of the quarter. Games and workdays go into overtime. We have challenging personal and professional relationships and interactions. We face some form of adversity and a corresponding level of stress every day of our life. Physical and mental toughness allows us to remain the best teammates and best team leaders that we can be, regardless of these challenges.

Our physical fitness combines with our physical and mental toughness to make us as prepared as we can be to summit any mountain safely, battle our corporate opponents Monday through Friday, compete on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and be the best spouses and parents possible. The best team leaders and the best teammates are tough—physically and mentally, not physically or mentally. (For the purpose of our book, The Program includes emotional resiliency as part of mental toughness.)

The Program defines “tough” as the ability to withstand and attack adversity or hardship while continuing to make good decisions that lead to mission accomplishment. We also believe that being tough includes withstanding and attacking that adversity or hardship with a positive attitude (hence why we also include “emotional resiliency” as part of being a tough person). As the British Royal Marines’ Commando Spirit highlights, being tough includes exhibiting a “cheerfulness in the face of adversity.”

Based on personal experiences (like going to battle or climbing Mount Everest) and professional ones (annually working with more than 150 college and pro athletic teams and major corporations), our Program teammates know that “everyone is a hero when it is seventy degrees and sunny.” Unfortunately, that’s not when you need them. In fact, only when the conditions are not ideal do great teammates, great team leaders, and hence great teams prove just how great they are.

All of us, as individuals or as part of a team, will experience adversity during our season, fiscal year, or life: something or someone that challenges us, that causes stress and adversity. Our physical and mental toughness will determine if that adversity ultimately “beats” us or if we will still accomplish the mission.

Eric speaks to, and meets with, thousands of people annually. Most are familiar with the fact that he has summited Mount Everest. Inevitably, someone will remark to him that climbing Mount Everest is “all mental.” Eric remarks with a laugh and a comment along the lines of “Yes, it is very challenging.” What he thinks is, “Obviously, you have never climbed Mount Everest!”

Climbing Mount Everest is not “all mental”! All climbers are different, but Eric believes that climbing Mount Everest is 95% physical preparedness (fitness and physical toughness combined). The 5% mental is what will kill you, though.

Based on the teams of which we are privileged to be a part, the battlefields that we compete on, and the mountain summits we attempt to attain in our own lives, these percentages are different for all of us. For athletes, military members, and emergency first responders, mission accomplishment might require 50% physical preparedness and 50% mental toughness. Doctors, nurses, teachers, and business people might require a much greater percentage of mental toughness than physical for successful mission accomplishment. Regardless of the battlefield though, both physical and mental toughness will be required for us to be the best teammates and best team leaders that we can be.

Toughness is binary. It is a 1 or a zero. We are, or we are not, physically and mentally tough. Thankfully, both are learned traits.