Elijah Espinoza

“The road to success is rarely a straight line. For me, it’s always been more like a maze. Many times, when I thought I’d finally cracked the code, had it all figured out, and found the straight path to certain victory, I hit a wall or got spun into a turnaround. When that happens, we have two choices. We can stay stuck or regroup, back up, and try again. That’s where evolution begins. Hitting those walls time and again will harden and streamline you. Having to back up and formulate a new plan without any assurances it will ever pan out will tune your SA up and develop your problem-solving skills and your endurance. It will force you to adapt. When that happens hundreds of times over the course of many years, it is physically exhausting and mentally draining, and it becomes damn near impossible to believe in yourself or your future. A lot of people abandon belief at that point. They swirl in the eddies of comfort or regret, perhaps claim their victimhood, and stop looking for their way out of the maze. Others keep believing and find a way out but hope to never slip into a trap like that ever again, and those skills they’d honed and developed whither. They lose their edge.”
― David Goggins, Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within