The book says little about character. The HARD framework relies on the reader to define their unique purpose and values. Yet vague “values” only go so far, and finding one’s purpose is a continual struggle for many of us. We told readers, “Define your values and your purpose,” then patted them on the back: “Cool, go figure that out while raising kids and answering 87 emails a day.”

I stumbled upon a possible solution: virtue. Virtues are the specific habits that make your power useful and your life coherent under pressure. Leveraging these is what allows people to flourish.

Virtue is the next phase of Life on Offense. It will be the new focus of this newsletter and likely another book.

Why another book?

Jay and I wrote Life on Offense to solve a simple problem: most people live on defense. The book gives you a recipe to get clear on what you want, set a vision, pick a strategy, build lines of effort, and run tactics that move you down the field.

The goal of our book is to get you into the arena and playing offense. But I noticed something as I kept talking about the HARD framework:

• You can have your health dialed (gym, macros, sleep) and still medicate stress with a bottle or your phone every night.

• You might read every leadership and parenting book and still dodge the hard conversations that would save your marriage.

• Your calendar screams “high performer,” but your browser history whispers “escapist.”

Grit and drive are not enough. Even the best strategy fails if the person running it is off by a few degrees. That gap is character. More specifically, it is virtue.

What is virtue?

The Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics) wrote about virtue ad nauseam. Their word for virtue was arete, which means excellence. Examples of how they understood the word were along the lines of:

• A knife is virtuous if it cuts well.

• A person is virtuous when they function at peak capacity as a rational, social, creative being.

Baruch Spinoza sharpened the meaning even more. He wrote, “By virtue and power, I mean the same thing.” Virtue is power, directed in the correct way.

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre ties virtue to practices and the story of a life. Virtues are the qualities that:

• Sustain the “goods” inside a practice (like medicine, soldiering, parenting, entrepreneurship)

• Shape your character across time

• Bind your life into a coherent narrative with standards of excellence

From a very different angle, Ayn Rand treated virtues as chosen principles that make life possible: independence, integrity, productivity, rationality. Her point is agency. You don’t have to agree with her on everything to admit she’s right about this: no one can do your living for you.

Put that together and you get a picture:

• Power without virtue becomes abuse.

• Tradition and practice without agency become conformity.

• Agency without wisdom becomes selfish wreckage.

Virtue unifies power, practice, and agency into offense that lands with purpose.

Virtue beats values

Values are what you say you care about. Virtues are the habits that make those values real under pressure.

• Values can be printed on a wall. Virtues show up in your calendar.

• Values can drift with mood. Virtues are trained responses.

• Values can conflict. Virtues help you choose which value gets priority, right now, for the right reason.

If you have to pick one to build first, build virtue. It will refine your values and expose the ones you only pretend to hold.

The Golden Mean

In the Socratic and Aristotelian tradition, virtue is the Golden Mean between two vices, one of deficiency and one of excess. It is not the mushy middle. It is the right balance; the precise aim:

• Courage sits between cowardice and recklessness.

• Generosity sits between stinginess and wastefulness.

• Ambition sits between sloth and greed.

Most of us do not fail in one direction forever. Instead, we overcorrect. We go from “I never speak up” to “I bulldoze every room.” We swing from “I give nothing” to “I give everything and burn out.”

That is the core of this new project and the direction of this newsletter: offense with aim. Constant calibration to the mean for this moment, with this mission, for these people.

Virtues on Offense

Here is the plan:

• New articles will focus on one virtue.

• Every virtue is mapped as a Golden Mean between two vices: deficiency and excess.

• Each article gives you:

  • A clear definition

  • A quick “self-diagnosis” to locate yourself on the spectrum

  • A story to relate

  • One actionable tactic

Behind the scenes, I am tracking about 15 categories of virtue: Character and Integrity, Personal Development, Leadership, Warrior Ethos, Relationships, Emotional Intelligence, Wisdom, Work, Prosperity, Civic Duty, Teamwork, Communication, Spirituality, Health, and Problem Solving.

That sounds like a lot. You will not get hit with all of it at once. Think of it as a playbook you pull from when it’s time to execute, not a syllabus for moral graduate school.

On this Substack, you will get the distilled version of the book I’m writing: one virtue at a time, a clear Golden Mean map, a concrete story, and a tactic to implement. My promise is to avoid fluff and the generic self-help blog tone.

How you can help shape this

I want this project to solve problems for you. If you are willing, hit reply or comment with:

1. The virtue you struggle with most right now

2. A situation where you felt “off” and are not sure if it was a lack of virtue, the wrong value, or just bad luck

I read every message. Your stories will influence which virtues I prioritize, which examples I use, and which tactics I sharpen first.

If you want to live on offense, you need more than hustle. You need a targeting system. That is what virtue is for; let’s build it.

James

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Some of the most intelligent, high-performing people I know are copying raw ChatGPT responses and pasting them into work emails, group threads, and even public posts without making a single edit. These are people who used to take pride in how they think and write. I’ve seen over a dozen Ivy League grads, Rhodes Scholars, and published authors commit this sin on a regular basis. They’ve become vessels of AI without a second thought.

It reminds me of why I’ve always hated scripted speeches. Something about listening to someone read from a teleprompter feels like a waste of time. It’s because the speaker is hiding behind a pre-approved script. Now we’re seeing the same thing with AI. But this time, it’s wrapped in even more flowery language.

What’s most disturbing is the sheer laziness: the lack of ownership in the self-editing process.

Coherence Isn’t Thought

Large language models are impressive. They speak in complete sentences. They use good grammar. They even know how to open with a strong hook. But just because you copied and pasted a polished paragraph doesn’t mean it was distilled down to the core idea or that it was edited to fit the situation.

LLM outputs are packed with generic, confident transitions and useless buzzword fluff. They read like the winning entry in a corporate writing contest to say something that is the least controversial. If you’ve read enough of this slop, you can spot it instantly

Why High Performers Are Falling for It

I get it: smart, hard-working corporate people are burnt out and tempted by the easy button that is ChatGPT. These people are juggling too much and are faced with too many deadlines. An LLM offers an easy win: you prompt it, copy the result, and hit send. The illusion of copy/paste and “done” is quite tempting. The problem is that “done” is disconnected from “understood.”

The historically deliberate act of writing something to reflect, inform, influence or entertain, is now a quick, token-based transaction. And people with credentials are the most empowered to lean on generative AI. If you graduated from the right school, have the right job title, or built a solid track record, it’s easy to believe you’ve earned the right to phone it in every once in a while.

Yet, people notice. Even when you don’t say anything after reading your “smart” friend’s clearly AI-written email, you know you feel the difference. Genuine communication creates connection and trust. Copied text destroys it.

What You’re Really Saying

When you paste machine-written content without editing or at least adding some context, it sends a secondary message. You’re saying, “I didn’t care enough to think this through.”

You’re saying, “Your time doesn’t matter as much as my convenience.”

You might not mean any of that, but that’s what people are thinking. Since enough smart folks are doing it now, the bar has dropped really low. Your email inbox is filled with templated, fluffy emails of little value. Your social media feed looks like a library of uncredited AI samples. You’re beginning to forget what clear, human writing sounds like.

It’s all blending into carbon copied, generic slop. If the sharpest minds aren’t taking the time to say something real, what chance do the rest of us have?

Reclaim the Offensive Edge

Sure, use ChatGPT. I do it all the time. But let it help you brainstorm, see different perspectives, and organize your thoughts. Please don’t let it be your starting point or final draft. Add your experience to the conversation, include some valuable human thought, and don’t be afraid to express your own opinions. Put your voice and some soul into it.

Hiding behind perfect grammar is not living on offense. Your edge is in your experience and your scars. Put some weight into that edge and say something useful. Say something that other people are afraid to say.

Before you hit send, ask yourself: Would I want to read this if it came from someone else?

And let me know: Have you spotted this trend too? Or are you guilty of it yourself?

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The book is available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle:
→ Order your copy here

The audiobook is almost ready. We’re mixing the last chapter and it will be out soon too.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this project from the spark of an idea to late nights of editing. And to those who have already ordered, you are officially part of the Life on Offense movement.

As for me, I’m always doing or at least attempting to do HARD things. Right now that means catching up on work by building a cybersecurity product the world needs. Not someday. Not next year. Now. Waiting for perfect timing is just another way of living on defense.

I’ll keep writing here on Life on Offense and keep building things that matter. Thanks for being in the arena with me. When you finish the book, tell me what landed and what didn’t. If something’s missing, I’ll cover it here on Substack.

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We knew we wanted to work on something together. At first, we kicked around half a dozen ideas. Then Jay showed me what he was doing at Do HARD Things Nation. It clicked immediately. We had the same vision for creating something with real impact, something that actually gave people tools to change their lives.

Over the next two and a half years, we researched, wrote, argued, and rewrote. We poured in everything we’d learned from ultra-endurance racing, our time in the military, and the transition to civilian life. Our book is the result of hundreds of reading hundreds of books, thousands of cups of coffee, and some of the most brutally honest conversations we’ve ever had. Today, Life on Offense: Do HARD Things is live on Amazon.

Why We Wrote This Book

We both saw the same problem everywhere: too many people drifting through life like non-player characters (NPCs), waiting for the perfect opportunity instead of building the life they actually want. And most self-help books don’t help much. They’re either all inspiration with no follow-through, or they bury you in theory that’s hard to apply.

Jay, as a high performance coach with no patience for bullshit, wanted a book that someone could actually use. He demanded we write a guide that wouldn’t sit on the nightstand, but one readers would dog-ear, mark up, and come back to when life got hard. So we built Life on Offense as a tactical field manual, anchored in the HARD framework: Health, Affluence, Relationships, and Development. It’s stupidly simple to understand, and brutally effective when you put it to use.

The Hardest Project We’ve Ever Done

We thought the book would be ready in January 2024. We were a bit off.

Somewhere along the way, this turned into our toughest project yet. We argued over wording, cut chapters that didn’t work, and debated the right balance between personal stories and hard tactics. At one point, I honestly wondered if we’d ever agree on the final version. But those fights forced us to push for something better, and I can say without hesitation the book you can buy today is sharper, cleaner, and way more actionable than what we had a year ago.

Our Own Misogi

Writing Life on Offense was our own Misogi, a challenge so hard it left us changed.

For me, it forced a shift in how I live. The writing and repetitive editing process forced me to reflect and slow down, prioritizing my health and family over short-term goals. For Jay, it brought clarity during his transition out of the military. The drawn out timeline made us live the very principles we were putting on the page.

Your Turn

If you’ve been putting off taking control of your health, wealth, relationships, or personal growth, waiting another year won’t help you. This book gives you the framework, the tactics, and the mindset to get back in the arena. It’s the guide we wish we’d had years ago.

The paperback, hardcover and Kindle editions are live now. Order your copy, read it, and start building a life that’s yours.

→ Get Life on Offense on Amazon

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While I was heads-down finishing the book, one of my side projects had to be put on hold. Back in 2023, I tried building my own AI-powered coach based on the frameworks we use. The goal was to turn our book into a chatbot that could help guide your habits, mindset, and personal growth. The reality was a mess. Between short memory, laggy responses, and an impossible tech stack, it became more trouble than it was worth.

So I pivoted. I stopped trying to build something from scratch and just started using ChatGPT directly. Once I gave it some structure, it turned into a surprisingly effective coaching tool.

In this article, I’ll share what I learned from the failed build and how I now use ChatGPT as my personal coach. I’ll walk through exactly how I use it every day, week, and quarter to enhance my life. I hope you can take what works, improve on it, and make it your own.

From DIY Disaster to Everyday AI Coach

In early 2023, I got ambitious and decided to build my own AI coach. I wanted to create a webpage that would walk someone through the Life on Offense frameworks in real time. An engineer I hired built a rough prototype using five different tools. My goal was to build a chatbot that could help people reflect on habits, mindset, and personal growth, all based on the book Jay and I were writing.

It looked great on paper. In practice, it was a mess.

The biggest problem was memory. The earlier versions of OpenAI’s large language models (LLMs) couldn’t hold context for long, which made any kind of meaningful coaching nearly impossible. I kept repeating myself just to keep the conversation coherent. On top of that, the tech stack we built was a fragile mix of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). When one updated, the others broke. Lag times were awful. I’d ask a question, then sit there wondering if the bot had frozen or just quit on me. The whole thing was glitchy, frustrating, and more trouble than it was worth.

After a few months of trying to debug my “dream coach,” I finally admitted it. The tech wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t impressed with LLM integration for chatbots in general. We shelved the project. But I came away with two valuable lessons. First, AI coaching only works when the system is fast, smooth, and remembers what you said. Second, chasing the perfect custom tool can make you overlook the simple solution that already exists.

Months later I opened up regular ChatGPT and just started using it as-is: with no plugins, integrations or setup. And to my surprise, it worked. The model had improved, context handling was better, and it ran reliably on all my devices. I could start a conversation on my laptop, continue on a walk, and pick it back up on my phone later. Once I brought some structure and purpose to how I used it, ChatGPT became the coach I had been trying to build from the beginning.

How I Actually Use ChatGPT as a Coach

Here’s how I use ChatGPT as a daily performance partner. It’s basically my coach, teacher, financial advisor, therapist, and accountability buddy in my pocket.

Daily: Reflection, Mindset, and Habits

• Morning check-in: I start each day by telling it my top one to three priorities. Just saying them out loud or typing them helps me lock in and focus.

• Journaling partner: I summarize what I wrote in my journal. “I felt off yesterday, skipped my workout, and am anxious about that project.” Then I ask for feedback. It usually follows up with something smart like, “What do you think triggered the anxiety?” That back-and-forth helps me be more honest and less reactive.

• Affirmation tool: When I’m unsure about something or stuck in a slump, I ask it to reframe the situation. It gives me a short, positive reminder that lands like a pep talk from someone who knows my goals and wants me to keep moving forward.

• Habit tracker: I report wins and slip-ups. “I exercised every day this week.” “I skipped practicing on the guitar again.” It responds with encouragement or helps troubleshoot without judgment. It doesn’t nag but it nudges and calls me out when I need it.

Weekly: Reviews and Recalibration

• Weekly review: Every Friday, I send over a quick summary of what worked, what didn’t, and what I’m thinking about. I ask, “What do I need to change?” It picks up patterns I miss and helps me reset for the week ahead.

• Fitness planner: I share my workouts and ask if I should keep pushing or back off. It usually tells me to recover more, but I usually ignore it until my lower back starts yelling.

• Accountability check: If I have avoided the same task for two or three weeks in a row, it points that out. I either commit to doing it or admit it is not a priority. No more hiding from my own to-do list.

Quarterly: Audits and Big Picture Planning

• Priority audit: I list my HARD goals (Health, Affluence, Relationships, Development) and compare them to how I’ve actually spent my time. ChatGPT calls out the gaps.

• Future pacing: I say something like, “It’s December 31st. Here’s what I want to have accomplished.” Then I ask it to describe that future version of my life and help reverse-engineer the steps to get there.

• Decision support: For the big stuff like career moves or major life changes, I lay out the context, the pros and cons, and my core values. ChatGPT helps organize the mess. It does not make the decision, but it sharpens my thinking and clears the emotional fog.

That’s it. I treat ChatGPT like a coach who always has time, never gets tired, and doesn’t care about impressing anyone. It’s not magic, but if you use it with consistency and honesty, your clarity sharpens. It helps you stay focused and moving forward at full-speed.

Frame It as a Coach, Not a Guru

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is to treat ChatGPT like a coach, not a guru.

It still gets things wrong. Sometimes the advice misses the point or feels generic. But that’s true for human coaches too. The key is staying in charge. I use it to test my thinking, not replace it.

If something feels off, I ask a sharper question or come at it from a different angle. Lazy inputs get lazy outputs. You still have to do the work.

What it’s great at is helping me see my thoughts more clearly. It helps me sort ideas, frame challenges, and pressure test decisions. But it only works well when I give it direction. I treat it like a smart assistant. If I ask for help planning my week or preparing for a tough choice, it usually comes up with something useful.

This only started working once I stopped thinking of it as just a tool and started using it like a teammate. That shift made it a regular part of my process.

If you’re already using AI for things like journaling, parenting, or learning, I’d love to hear what’s working. Send me a note or leave a comment. I’m always interested in how people are putting this stuff to work in real life.

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The trip wasn't all work for Jay though; we did take a spontaneous trip to Uruguay in the middle of recording. We hopped a ferry across the Río de la Plata to Uruguay, staying in the historic town of Colonia del Sacramento for a weekend. Wandering the old town’s cobblestone streets, away from the loud city of Buenos Aires, I felt a profound sense of freedom and clarity. Below is a photo of us enjoying the peace and quiet next to a basilica that’s at least 200 years old.

There’s something about buying a boat ticket on a whim, crossing into a new country, and watching a South American sunset that makes you reflect on life. On that trip, between bites of chivito sandwich and listening to street musicians, I kept thinking about what it means to live on offense.

One concept that came up when Jay and I were talking about the book and our own lives was the sigma male. It's an idea that’s been floating around the internet for a while. Think of the sigma as the lone wolf archetype. He’s the guy who opts out of the traditional alpha/beta pecking order and forges his own way. He’s independent, self-reliant, and doesn’t care about fitting in or leading the pack. I’ll admit, I can see an appeal to that. For those of us who value our independence, the sigma male concept sounds like a way to avoid playing the social dominance game.

But here’s the rub: taken too far, it becomes an individualistic overcorrection. Being a lone wolf means you answer to no one. But it also means you might end up howling alone in the woods.

Humans are wired for connection and purpose. If you make life only about opting out and never about tuning in to others, you risk drifting into a life of detached independence. The sigma male archetype, in its extreme, can turn into an excuse to avoid responsibility and the hard work involved in building relationships and community. But what if you could be both the lone wolf and the village builder?

Meet The Constructive Sigma. A Constructive Sigma walks their own path but brings others along. They’re lone in resolve, but never alone in vision. The Constructive Sigma forges their own path, yes, but they do it while building something meaningful for others. It’s like being a rebel and a giver at the same time. You refuse to be a slave to others’ expectations (that’s the sigma part), but you also refuse to live a selfish, hollow life (that’s the constructive part).

A Constructive Sigma might skip the beaten path, but he’s still leaving footprints others can use. He might not follow the traditional ladder, but he’s also not sawing off the ladder behind him. In fact, he’s holding it for the next person. They value freedom, but in a healthy way: freedom to do what’s right and to serve a bigger purpose. The Constructive Sigma is the entrepreneur who builds a company to solve a problem and uplift his team, the artist who creates her own style but inspires others with her message, or the leader who doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold yet ends up guiding others by example. In short, it’s sigma with a heart.

So why might you want to take this approach? Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl observed that even in the worst of circumstances, we retain one human freedom: the freedom to choose our attitude and find meaning. He argued that success and happiness cannot be chased directly; they ensue as unintended side-effects of dedicating yourself to a greater cause or helping someone else. In other words, purpose and love give our independence its meaning.

When people reach the end of their lives, many realize the high cost of living someone else’s life. Nurse Bronnie Ware famously recorded the top regrets of the dying, and number one on the list was this: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” That’s the cry of an unlived sigma life: a plea for agency. And in those same conversations with the dying, another regret surfaced often: “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.” In our final moments, it’s clear that relationships are just as vital to a life well lived as personal freedom and authenticity.

Even philosophers have warned against isolating ourselves. The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, “What is not good for the hive is not good for the bee.” This means that if it’s bad for your community, it’s ultimately bad for you. True fulfillment strikes a balance between forging your own path, and knowing when to walk it alongside others.

It turns out the importance of serving a purpose beyond yourself is ancient wisdom. Across cultures and faiths, we find the common thread that a life of meaning is a life that helps others. Take some of the major religions for example.

• Christianity: “The greatest among you shall be your servant.” – Jesus

• Islam: “The best of people are those who are most beneficial to others.” – Prophet Muhammad

• Hinduism: “Through selfless service, you will always be fruitful and find the fulfillment of your desires.” – The Bhagavad Gita

• Buddhism: “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – The Dalai Lama

Modern science backs this up too. Studies in positive psychology show that altruistic behavior correlates with higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction. When you contribute to something beyond yourself, you’re giving your freedom purpose.

All of this aligns with the framework Jay and I lay out in Life on Offense: Do HARD Things. Living “on offense” means taking charge of your life in a positive, proactive way. The Constructive Sigma embodies this by balancing personal agency with service and growth. Here’s how that looks in practice:

• Purpose: A Constructive Sigma lives with a clear sense of purpose. You define success on your own terms, set big goals, and push your boundaries.

• Relationships: You cultivate strong relationships and keep your tribe close. Being independent doesn’t mean being alone; you pour time and love into your family, friends, and community. You choose uplifting people to surround yourself with and you become an uplifting person for others.

• Work & Leadership: Instead of working aimlessly or just for a paycheck, you strive to do work that matters. You lead by serving: helping your team or colleagues grow. You might be unconventional in your approach, but you set an example through action, integrity, and courage.

• Growth: You embrace challenges and do the hard things that make you better. Rather than shy away from discomfort, you run toward it to expand your capacity.

In essence, the Constructive Sigma lives free and responsibly. It’s the sweet spot between rugged individualism and being a devoted community member. This kind of person can take off on a spontaneous trip to Uruguay one week, and the next week be back home coaching their kid’s soccer team and mentoring coworkers. They enjoy the healthy freedom of self-determination without falling into the trap of detached independence.

The Constructive Sigma is a call to live with intention. You don’t wait for permission. You chart your own course, take ownership, and lead by example. You don’t do it for ego, but for impact.

Be courageous in your path and generous in your purpose. Be the lone wolf who brings back food for the pack. Live with purpose, love with fire, and lead through service. The world has enough people drifting. What it needs are more folks on offense, forging ahead with conviction. This is your moment. Take it and run.

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Chapter 1. Life on Offense shows you how to shift your mindset to proactively seek out opportunities rather than waiting for life to happen. We give our argument on why you should strive to live on offense and avoid the SHIT that keeps you on defense. The chapter introduces the HARD framework through the Do HARD Things Recipe for Success:

1. A vision: Where you want to go

2. A clear strategy: Offense vs. Defense

3. Lines of effort: Health, Affluence, Relationships, and Development

4. Tactics: Each subsequent chapter shares several tactics that you can immediately put to use

Chapter 2. Seeking Clarity guides you in defining your purpose and creating a compelling vision. I share my personal journey of rediscovering purpose after leaving the Army.

Chapter 3. Transform Bullshit Beliefs is your crash course in breaking through invisible barriers that limit your potential. We provide powerful tactics for converting limiting beliefs into empowering ones that drive you forward.

Chapter 4. The Goal Crusher guides you through a proven system to set goals that you’ll actually accomplish. The Goal Crusher helps you organize your goals and actions, giving you a blueprint for your future success.

Chapter 5. HARD Habits gives you the best tactics to create better habits and leverage your psychology for growth. I also tell my own story of how the habit of daily training propelled me to podium finishes in three cycling national championships.

Chapter 6. Physical Health breaks down each of the most effective tactics to enhance and maintain your body’s health, and most importantly, how to avoid a slow death.

Chapter 7. Mental Health reveals our top five tactics for building a strong mind and spirit to do HARD things, including how to be more present.

Chapter 8. Affluence explains the mindset of wealth and how to avoid limiting beliefs that keep people poor. This chapter lays out the simple steps for building wealth.

Chapter 9. Relationships gives you a framework for balancing your social life, identifying and avoiding toxic relationships, and nurturing strong, meaningful connections.

Chapter 10. Development ties the HARD framework together, giving you the tools you need to obtain mastery and continually improve your skills. Unfortunately my personal story, about pushing past panic, didn't make the final cut.

Chapter 11. Take Command pulls everything together and equips you with final tactics for personal leadership and resilience. It includes my personal favorite tactic: Embracing the suck.

Thank you so much again for being part of our journey. Our Life on Offense community through Substack really did a lot to give feedback and shape the content of the book. Please stay tuned as we finish getting everything ready for publication in the next few months.

What I learned from my time away from writing is that priorities can change, but staying intentional allows you to stay on top of your priorities, not controlled by them. When your health crashes, you see how unimportant your other priorities can be. I was reminded that no other priority outranks health. Thankfully, I’ve been back to normal since February and am even back to my old workout routine again.

Traveling for a month shook my routines and provided clarity about what I truly value and which priorities actually matter most. Seeing family back home in the South reinforced just how crucial intentionality is in how I'm raising my own family. With siblings, parents and in-laws scattered between two continents, I really have to pick and choose who I spend time with and for how long. The recent trip motivated me to read some books on raising my one-year old son intentionally. That’s shifting to become a larger research focus, but first there’s a bigger project: the audiobook recording for Life on Offense: Do HARD Things.

Here’s the exciting part, next month, my co-author Jay Tiegs and I begin recording the audiobook. Getting ready for this recording was exactly the reminder I needed of why intentional living and clear priorities matter. Especially as we rehearsed the chapter titled “Goal Crusher,” which focuses on dominating goals within realistic deadlines.

As we rehearsed the script of the audiobook, I reconnected with our manuscript and reflected more on my own priorities and time management. After reading through the last chapter aloud, I sat down and rebuilt my schedule around the HARD framework (HARD stands for Health, Affluence, Relationships, and Development). It was tough because I had to cut out some things I wanted to do, but it was so worth it because of the mental clarity that came with it. I’ve doubled down on eating healthy and working out first thing every morning. I’m also spending more time researching for writing projects that deeply align with my values, instead of watching the never-ending feed of Youtube video suggestions or reading through my web browser’s recommended articles.

Here are the three tactics I implemented to regain control of my life and regain clarity:

1. Priority Audit: I reviewed my top priorities (Health, Affluence, Relationships, Development) and daily habits to ensure alignment with my core goals—particularly involving health and family—and refocused accordingly.

2. Time-Blocking & Saying No: After returning, I reorganized my calendar day-by-day to clearly reflect my priorities, delayed some projects intentionally, and scheduled extra time to ensure a stellar audiobook recording.

3. Preparation Mindset: Booking our studio time for early May created a firm deadline, sharpened my focus, and drove clear, intentional action. To meet the deadline I had to make sure consulting, recruiting, the audiobook rehearsal, and parenting responsibilities were all organized around this milestone.

It feels great reconnecting with you and the Life on Offense community. Thank you for sticking with me through this hiatus. I'm back with renewed clarity, committed more than ever to exploring intentional living alongside you. I'd love to hear about your experiences with maintaining a life on offense lately—what’s worked or hasn’t worked for you? Feel free to reply or drop a comment below. Big things are coming; I’m excited to be on this journey with you again!

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Some of life’s most valuable lessons come from its hardest moments. Whether it's the burn of a grueling workout or the twists and turns of an unpredictable day, every challenge offers a chance to grow stronger. My co-author, Jay Tiegs, and I have trained and raced thousands of miles together, both on bike and on foot. Along the way, we discovered the power of pushing through discomfort, finding laughter in tough times, and learning how to truly enjoy doing HARD things. Both in the military and in sports, we’ve seen the same truth time and again: when you choose to embrace the suck, you don’t just endure it—you thrive because of it.

The same perseverance and humor that help soldiers and athletes overcome tough situations can be applied to chasing ambitious goals in life. When you are driving toward a big goal, usually 90% of the process sucks and less than 10% of it feels rewarding. But you can’t get discouraged too soon when things don’t go as planned. You have to laugh a little at your mistakes on the way and not be too serious.

The Emotional Cycle of Change shown below helps visualize the feelings you go through when working toward a difficult goal. Don Kelley and Daryl Conner developed this cycle in the 1970s and it has been used in many industries to explain the concept of “the suck,” which is the valley of despair at the bottom of the curve.

Source: The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran

This chart has been applied to everything from technology development to the emotions felt through the learning curve. I use this cycle to pinpoint where I am emotionally while doing HARD things. This way, I can see where I am on the curve and gauge how much effort I need to put in to start seeing results, giving me a boost of hope. Riding this emotional roller coaster is something you just have to deal with as a human being, and you need to know where you are in the cycle so you can brace yourself before things get rough.

You usually start working on a new project or goal with excitement and uninformed optimism. You’re leaning into your curiosity. Yet, quickly you start to lose confidence as you learn the difficulties involved and enter the stage of informed pessimism. Eventually this pessimism brings you deep into the valley of despair, aka “the suck.” But if you keep on working hard, you reach informed optimism and finally success and fulfillment. The real challenge is to embrace the suck as you make it past informed pessimism and through the valley of despair. Sadly, most people give up during the toughest phase and miss the chance to achieve the true rewards of their hard work.

The valley of despair is what holds people back and is the most demanding part of the cycle. When you are struggling to make it through a daunting change or transition, this is where you want to quit. The valley of despair is essentially a mental barrier. While working to accomplish a goal, it is the pessimism creeping in and telling you that you won’t succeed. When making a big change in your life, the valley is you realizing that it is easier just to continue with your old ways. These thoughts are your brain trying to take the easy way out. You have to leverage your courage and hope to push yourself through the valley and embrace the suck.

When you're competing in a sport, there are only two real options: win or lose. Yet, during these moments, your internal monologue can feel bipolar. One part of you is confident and ready to win the next point. The other part is scared and feels like an imposter. It’s like you have an inner voice with a megaphone screaming, “You aren’t ready! You’re going to screw this up!” The monologue in your mind plants seeds of doubt. Serena Williams has referred to her inner battle as silencing the “doubt demon.” This inner battle is a constant tug-of-war between the doubt demon trying to hold you back and your confident inner voice pushing you toward success.

Every person has some variant of this doubt demon, and sometimes it is squawking in your ear like an annoying protester. Know that negative voice is there, acknowledge it, turn the volume down and don’t let it win.

Courage is what allows you to overcome those irrational fears that pop up as you move through the valley of despair. In Eileen Lenson’s book, Overcoming Adversity, she describes three components to courage: your head, heart and feet. Your head keeps you focused on the goal you desire to achieve. Your heart deals with all the emotions like fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Your feet either want to run away due to the uncertainty, or to stay and fight. You have to take charge of these aspects of your courage and climb out of the valley of despair. To push through the difficult moments, sometimes you have to see stressful events or obstacles as challenges instead of threats. Then you get your head, heart and feet aligned to move you in the right direction.

Hope is the other ingredient that gets you through the valley of despair. When you work toward a realistic goal with a clear path and self-belief, hope will guide you. This belief in your ability to continue moving forward is what enables success. When you have enough hope, you have exactly what it takes to embrace the suck. Your vision of what lies beyond the valley becomes a powerful force, pulling you forward like a magnet and giving you the strength to overcome adversity.

When exiting the valley of despair, you begin to see the payoff or even start to reap the benefits of your hard work. This is like seeing the light at the end of a tunnel. Now, not only will you have a clear goal in mind with some sort of reward, you’ll also start seeing something concrete that gives you even more motivation. Your hope grows as your vision comes to life. As you pass through the stage of informed optimism, you know exactly what you need to do. Then you reach a state of flow where you are accomplishing your goals and reaching fulfillment.

Achieving goals means you’re winning, so savor these moments because you earned them. You should acknowledge the feeling of satisfaction of overcoming adversity. The tough days in the valley of despair make the success and fulfillment at the end of the cycle feel so good. It’s also great to look back and laugh about the rough times. This reinforcement is excellent for your mind. Remembering those experiences teaches you to enjoy the short-term stresses because you know that you will have long-term rewards. Embrace the suck by understanding where you are on the emotional cycle and choosing to have a positive attitude the whole way through.

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My current responsibility was to contact every county in Oklahoma and register our firm as a potential contractor. The list overwhelmed and terrified me because the implied task was that I would need to either email or call each of them. To make it even more challenging, many of these counties didn’t even provide email addresses for their contracting offices.

I easily finished making the list of all the email addresses and phone numbers for each county. There were official phone numbers for each of them but not very many email addresses. That meant that I would need to call at least 60 county offices! Making multiple phone calls felt utterly crushing to me at this awkward stage of being a nerdy teenager.

A couple times in my life up to this point I had exchanged numbers with girls. However, I was far too shy to call the girl afterward. Both times when the girls ended up calling me, I was too frightened to speak. My shyness was so overpowering that I usually avoided even talking to friends whom I wanted to speak with over the phone, much less call a scary contracting office employee on the other side of the line.

I emailed all of the offices that had published email addresses. Then I sat in my small intern-sized cubicle in the corner of the mailroom, staring at the list again. I slowly began to realize that the calls weren’t going to make themselves. Someone had to pick up the phone. The list was already meticulously organized with the counties in alphabetical order.

I was trying to stay busy but was avoiding the actual calling portion of the work. The repetitive tasks of sending mail, moving data between databases, and organizing files were things I much preferred over actually talking to people. Simple and easy work was what I felt comfortable with. Still, the ambitious voice in the back of my head knew that I needed to grow, do better, and learn new skills.

So I started typing in the number for Adair county. Halfway through dialing the number, I hung up the phone out of fear that I had misdialed one of the numbers. I told myself that I had to relax. Taking a deep breath and starting over again, I typed all the numbers exactly as my list said. Then the connection went through and the phone started ringing! Panic surged as my eyes widened in sheer terror. “OH NO!” I thought, “I’m going to have to talk to someone!”

My heart began to pound as the phone kept ringing. Everything slowed down around me as a billion thoughts ran through my head about what I would say to the person who answered. The voice mail started. I freaked out, “What do I say to the voicemail machine!?” The beep sounded and I tried to mumble something, but then I realized I had been holding my breath since before I punched in the first digit of the phone number. A wave of terror hit me, and I slammed the handset back down.

After several deep breaths, I started to get my mind right to make the call again. I rehearsed what I would say in my mind, “Hello, my name is James and I’m with Cardinal Engineering. Is there someone I can speak with about getting on the county’s list for engineering contractors? Hello, my name is James and I’m with Cardinal Engineering. Is there someone I can speak with about getting on the county’s list for engineering contractors:” I repeated it a few dozen times until it was stamped into my mind.

It was time to put the memorized script to use. I picked up the phone again and called Adair County, trying to take deep breaths as the phone rang.

A lady with an Oklahoma accent on the other end answered, “Hello, how may I help you?” My eyes opened wide again, and I panicked. I hung up. Now I was angry at myself. By calling and hanging up, I was wasting other people’s time. I had to get my act together. This was insane, why couldn’t I just talk to the person?

I skipped to the next county: Alfalfa. Not knowing anything about Alfalfa county, I at least knew that I was going to either leave a voicemail or talk to someone, without hanging up this time. Forcing myself to pick up the phone, I dialed the number and waited. The script in my mind replayed over and over between each ring. Another lady with a polite voice answered this time, “Hi, how may I help you?”

I thought for a couple seconds that felt like forever. The words left me, and I forgot what to say. “Uh, uh. Hello, yes how are you?” I said.

“Yes, this is Alfalfa County contracting, how may I help you?” She replied back, patiently.

“Yes, ma’am. Um. My name is James Thornton and I’m with Cardinal Engineering. Uhhhh. Can I speak with someone about a contractor’s list?” I did it! Conversation started. Super embarrassed but slowly trudging through the call, I was able to leave my information for a call back. Wow, that wasn’t so bad.

As I kept calling more counties, I slowly started to realize that I had to overcome my fear of talking on the phone. There was only one way to make it all the way through this list of contracting offices. This mission would be the start of a long journey where I forced myself to not only be a normal person who can make phone calls, but also a good teammate. Communication is critical for doing just about anything on a team, and I was useless if I couldn’t even talk to other people without an anxiety attack. I knew that I had to buckle down and break out of my timid shell in order to survive in this world.

That experience taught me something crucial - not just about overcoming fear but about the sheer effort it takes to improve. Growth doesn't happen by accident. It requires action, discomfort and persistence. As we work, play and live our lives, we often fall into routines and shy away from tough conversations. We settle into patterns that feel safe, even if they leave you unfulfilled. Sometimes, though, you have to stop and ask yourself what HARD things you really want to do. What challenges will push you forward and force you to grow?

A lot of people set goals, especially at the start of a new year, to tackle tasks they've been putting off. Some will even succeed in checking those items off their list. But true, lasting self-improvement is more than just achieving goals you set. It’s about committing to the ongoing work of becoming better every day. What if you made continuous growth your mission, not just now and then, but as a way of life? What would that enable you to do?

If you want to step up your personal growth game and commit to doing the HARD things that truly matter, subscribing to this newsletter is an excellent first step. Here, you’ll continue to find inspiring stories and tactics to help you face challenges head-on. My goal is to create a community of others who have adopted intentional living as a way of life. If you’re interested in learning more from the Life on Offense project, stay tuned and feel free to message me with any recommendations on specific topics you want to read about.

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One answer to this question is known as “Dunbar’s Number,” proposed by Robin Dunbar, a British Anthropologist. His theory says that you can only maintain about 150 meaningful and stable relationships. There are examples of how this plays out naturally everywhere. Hunter-gatherers used to work in groups of less than 150. Corporations have found they have problems managing teams in buildings with more than 150 people. Military units often use company size elements around 150 people. Anything beyond that and there are issues with span of control. 

Using Dunbar’s number is a great way to evaluate the capacity you have for a relationship and to determine what category a person belongs to. While categorizing people might sound controversial, especially when governments do it, in your personal life it is prudent. The number 150 doesn’t have to be an absolute, but it serves as a useful reference.

You can imagine the categories of your relationships as different parts of a tree. Your family and significant other are like the roots that hold you in place. Your closest friends and the people you are with on a daily basis start to form the base or main trunk of your tree that breaks out to branches. Outside of your friends and family are your branches of acquaintances. These are the people you work with, share hobbies with, or someone you know but are not super close to. Acquaintances include old friends you haven't spoken to in a while and anyone you know who isn't family or a close friend. Outside of your list of acquaintances, you have new connections. These are like leaves at the end of branches that may or may not stick around. These are all the people whom you just met. If you foster an ongoing relationship with these new connections, they might eventually turn into branches instead of leaves.

Think about how your tree works. Your deep connections are the roots which provide stability. The roots bring water and nutrients to maintain your tree's health, and they keep it firmly planted during storms. Your roots are the people you hold near and dear to your heart and should make you feel fulfilled. Some of your stronger connections are like branches. The branches hold the leaves and assist in the nourishment of your tree. These are strong people in your life you grow close to and depend on. The branches blow with each passing storm of life, but sometimes they break off, which is like the end of a strong friendship or an intimate relationship. A branch breaking off gives an opportunity for a new one to grow in its place. Many people in your life will be like leaves. The leaves add color to your life. These are people whom you meet at work or through friends. They might be casual acquaintances and usually come and go with each season. 

It is important to understand that not everyone has the same access to your time, attention, or influence over you. Similarly, you only have a limited amount of influence on others. As you move outward from the roots and trunk of your tree, your level of trust and communication decreases. These two forces act like water and nutrients to keep your tree alive. Trust strengthens the quality of your relationships. It makes people believe that the interactions are genuine and have confidence that the positive relationship will continue. Communication is what keeps relationships going, and it includes all the interactions that feed a relationship. You have to be careful with how you communicate and the amount of trust you give, just like you must balance the water and nutrients to keep your tree healthy.

Sometimes you also have to prune your tree to make room for growth. When you prune a fruit tree, you have to make a decision where to cut different branches. This is similar to actively planning your social calendar or saying “no” sometimes. On a tree you trim the branches that are starting to droop because they will become weak and weigh down more as they bear fruit. Those heavy branches are like people who are negative and pull you down. You might also prune branches that shoot straight up, as they lack strength and stability. Branches growing too closely compete for resources, preventing them from reaching their full potential, much like relationships with too much rivalry. You also prune the branches that grow inward because they inhibit growth and represent selfishness. This is like avoiding negative and toxic people, gossip, or those who don’t respect your boundaries. Regular pruning keeps your tree healthy.

How do you identify the toxic people whom you need to prune from your life? My favorite author, Robert Greene, suggests looking for patterns of behavior that consistently harm or manipulate others, like spreading negativity, creating unnecessary conflict, or undermining others to elevate themselves. Building on this, I define a toxic person as someone who engages in activities and behaviors that are manipulative and destructive. The challenge in avoiding toxic people is knowing what to look for and spotting these red flags. 

The hallmark trait of toxic individuals is extreme narcissism. We’re talking about people who are not interested in helping you but are instead hyperfocused on looking out for themselves. They often lack empathy, have a sense of entitlement, and need constant validation. These people will drain your mental, emotional, spiritual and physical energy if you spend enough time with them. They can have a tremendous impact on your health by adding stress, fueling anxiety and even steering you to depression. Below are some common things toxic people do that you can use to identify them.   

M: Manipulate facts, making you question your reality

A: Always expect you to be available, while not reciprocating

N: Never admit to being wrong

I: Instill doubt, leaving you feeling confused

P: Parse words to twist meanings for their own benefit

U: Use silent treatment and stonewalling to avoid confrontation

L: Leave you feeling drained or anxious

A: Avoid emotions and accountability

T: Tear you down with criticism and belittling

E: Engage in triangulation, involving others to create conflict

You don’t have to put up with people treating you this way. In return, you have to avoid being the toxic one in a relationship. 

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“Wanting more money feels greedy.” 

“Negotiating a higher salary is selfish and scary.” 

“Saving money is hard.” 

These are excuses you probably hear too often. Most people spend money on dumb things, which then forces them to live a life they don’t want. My best friend from the Army, Jay Tiegs, and I see too many people spending money to show off and not living out their own financial vision. To combat this madness, we are writing a book about how to live intentionally and avoid excuses like the ones above that hold you back. One of the biggest challenges we see is overcoming the social programming that makes us Americans addicted to debt. Gary Vaynerchuck did a great job summing up our society as a whole in this heavily censored quote from a conference, “The amount of people in here that have a job they hate and buy things they don’t care about, to impress people they don’t care about, scares me.” Sometimes you just have to call out what no one else will.

Affluence is a topic that is taboo for the poor and middle class because rich people talk about it, and it is something they envy. Instead people let financial problems fester without confronting them. Capital One released a survey that found finances are the number-one cause of stress for adults. Finances were more stressful than politics, work, and even family problems. Do not let this be your biggest problem when there is a simple recipe for affluence: working hard and saving money. 

Hopefully, one of your goals is to use your affluence as a positive means to influence others and have some semblance of personal freedom. The hard part is that gaining financial freedom requires overcoming negative societal beliefs about affluence and maintaining healthy money habits. The truth is that the decisions you make are predominantly determined by your wealth, which is highly correlated with the wealth of those closest to you. People with similar levels of wealth and income tend to live in the same types of places and associate with nearly identical people. Your affluence even affects how you plan your career, vacations, and when to retire. 

If you live in the United States, you likely have an above-average income and wealth compared to the rest of the world. Once you open your mind to a larger worldview on finance, it changes your perspective on how much money or material wealth you need to be happy. I have lived overseas in affluent communities and also in places with rampant poverty, or at least what Americans consider to be below the poverty line. Surprisingly, what I noticed in very resource-poor areas was that people usually seem quite happy. Much of the world’s “poor” are living in areas that do not have advanced banking systems with the ability to use credit and take on debt. So the infrastructure around them is not developed, yet the locals seem unconcerned. The “poor” in other countries are often living quite rich lives in terms of doing the things that they want to do and enjoying a lot of time with their family. 

A big problem in America is that you hear a lot about work-life balance, but people rarely talk about how to achieve a healthy saving-spending balance. We talk even less about how credit and debt should be used. You’ve heard the phrase that money is the root of all evil, right? Well, I believe it's debt that's the real problem when it comes to financial stress. When you have wealth and live free of high-interest debt, your options are nearly limitless on what you can do. As you lose wealth and take on debt, you lose your freedom. 

Debt can also compound and stretch out to the future, limiting your time and ability to take risks. Especially if you have a family to support, your ability to do HARD things will feel even more limited with the added weight of a mortgage or car payment. This is for good reason, if your family depends on your income to pay off debt plus the usual bills, then you don't have the full breadth of opportunities to leave your comfort zone. High-interest debt will keep you in a scarcity mindset, playing on defense, and hold you back from new opportunities. 

There are three mindsets when it comes to money and debt: poor, middle class, and rich. These mindsets view personal finance very differently. Beliefs from each of these strongly affect your emotions. Your emotions affect your actions and habits in how you manage your money, which then affect your wealth long term. The three mindsets move from a state of scarcity to abundance, with the rich mindset seeing a world of opportunities to help others and grow one’s wealth. Let’s take a look at each of these mindsets.  

Being rich is not just about how much you have but also how you perceive money. Poor people think money is for paying bills. The middle class think the purpose of money is to maintain a good credit score so they can buy things they can’t afford. You will likely not become rich if you think like the poor or middle class. Rich people believe the primary purpose of money is turning it into more money. 

There is also an important difference between being broke and poor. Broke means not having money for a period of time. Whereas poor is a deep-seated state of mind that there isn’t enough and there will never be enough. The poor learn to love material possessions and titles. People love these because they are driven and motivated to flex what they have so that others can see. Poor people have the belief that has been narrated by social media and Hollywood that those who are wealthy are flashy and flaunt what they have. The poor criticize the rich for making so much money. “He has billions of dollars, it must be nice.” But they don’t see the hard work that person put in over the past 20 years and the risks that were taken. Successful business owners are often the last to get paid. If the business fails and declares bankruptcy, guess what can’t be written off, the salary owed to the employees. The workers don’t have the same type of risk. 

While employees may not face the same financial risks as business owners, those with a poor mindset often engage in risky financial behaviors. They might even play the lottery, believing that a sudden windfall will transform their lives and bring happiness. However, studies have shown that around half of people who win the lottery go bankrupt. There are countless horror stories of people who won the lottery and had terrible results afterwards. Lottery winners have relationship issues, winner’s guilt, and people in their lives who also have a scarcity mindset who rob them. Many lottery winners even commit suicide due to the stress associated with having such a huge influx of wealth. This cliche story of quick riches to rags is because of people’s inability to effectively manage their money and their poor mindset. Money by itself will not eliminate a poor mentality. 

The middle class mindset is defined by the love of income. How much money you make defines where you fall and even your social status. The lower middle class tend to have fewer skills and smaller salaries, whereas the upper middle class often have white collar careers that pay better. The middle class view their homes as an investment, and they believe that home ownership is the path to wealth. What most do not know is that wealthy people buy a nice home after they get rich. The poor and middle class buy their home, hoping to get rich. They fall into lifestyle traps like buying homes they cannot afford, designer brands they do not need, other luxury goods, cars with expensive insurance, and many other toys such as boats, motorcycles, and RVs. 

So what about rich people? The rich generally don’t want income from W-2 jobs. Why? They know that they are going to get raked over the coals in taxes. Instead, the rich want freedom for themselves and their family. Instead of climbing the corporate ladder, the rich aspire to own the corporate ladder. They often sign up to take on more risk so they can help others. The richest own their businesses and their home is only a fraction of their wealth. The real rich are usually less flashy with luxury goods than most people think. They are secure enough with their wealth that they don’t need to flaunt it to everyone. How do the rich get there?

How do you bridge the gap from the poor or middle class to the rich mindset? You have to get through tough times where you don’t have much money. You have to focus on making and saving money, not spending it. The trap people fall into (and I certainly have) is that as you make more money, you spend more money. However, wealth accumulates when you save more than you spend. The poor and middle class mindsets crave to increase quality of life each time they gain more income. This cycle is called the hedonic treadmill, and it is a fool’s errand to stay on this hamster wheel. It will keep you from achieving financial freedom. To not fall into this trap, you have to check your ego and not get stuck keeping up with the Joneses. Simply, this just requires saving instead of spending. 

If you’d like to take a deeper look at how mindset affects affluence, I highly recommend reading The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. Dr. Thomas Stanley also did some impressive research on what the affluent lifestyle is really like and published several successful books including The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. Stanley’s books document the mindset and tactics millionaires actually use to maintain financial independence and accumulate even more wealth. It all boils down to being content with living below your means, working hard, and having the courage to take risks.

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After bouncing back from the crazy time that was the pandemic lockdown, I went on a spree of reading over a hundred books on personal development. Yet, these books felt like they were missing something. A lot of self help books are just memoirs to help promote the author’s business, and other books just have a narrow scope that doesn’t mesh well with other frameworks. My best friend from the Army, Jay Tiegs, and I decided that we could write a much better book based on high performance coaching methodology. We’re working on a section now that just covers mindfulness techniques. Below is the summary of our tips from the book on some easy ways to practice mindfulness.

Gratitude

Mindfulness begins with gratitude. Brian Tracy, a motivational speaker and self-development author, employs a simple and effective framework known as the “Four A’s of expressing gratitude.” You can use these four items as a base to maintain an “attitude of gratitude” in daily life.

• Appreciation: Recognize the value of someone else

• Approval: Give praise for good effort and support an idea 

• Admiration: Compliment someone on an accomplishment or trait 

• Attention: Listen intently with full attention and patience 

Positive Self Talk

A powerful way to avoid negative thoughts is to deliberately think positively during transition points throughout your day. You can practice these transitions through doorways, before new meetings or appointments, and when you are preparing for any focused task. Feeding your mind positive thoughts either mentally or through talking out loud to yourself primes you to focus more on your present moment.

Another tool is to make a mantra or short mission statement. This statement should inspire you and help you focus. Throughout the day, you can use your mantra or a specific affirmation to help keep your thoughts positive and moving in the right direction. I often use simple statements like, “Do HARD things,” “I have been through more pain than this before,” “I have overcome more difficult challenges than this one in the past,”and “I am here to help others.” These simple statements will do a lot to keep you on track.

Meditation and Prayer

If you don’t already have some form of meditation or prayer built into your schedule, think about when you could do this on a daily basis. Meditation can take many different forms, so you have a ton of options. You do not have to do it with your eyes closed, seated with your legs crossed, and palms on your lap facing up. You can meditate however you deem fit: standing, lying down, or even walking. Heck, I find a relaxing walk or bike ride on a safe road to be a form of meditation. 

Here are some different meditation techniques that you can try out in your own personal routine.

• Resolve stressful and distracting thoughts: Think through any issues that have been bothering you.

• Have gratitude: Just remind yourself to be happy for what you have instead of sad or angry because of what you lack.

• Breathe: If you can’t find anything to be grateful for, you can at least enjoy breathing. Focusing on inhaling increases your alertness and exhaling will help you relax.

• Scan your body: Being aware of all of your aches and pains from head to toe can help you resolve them. Address your pain or create a plan to prevent it from affecting your mood and other people.

• Listen to music: Get in the moment and enjoy it by listening to music. Music can help you relax or bring your energy level up.

• Practice mindfulness: Focus on the present and decrease your anxiety. There are countless guided mindfulness meditations online to help you be fully present.

• Visualize the future: Visualization allows you to focus on what you want, further clarify your vision, rehearse for an event and prepare to accomplish your goals.

• Focus externally: You can focus your vision (with your eyes or just in your imagination) at different distances away from yourself to help you feel more grounded.

• Transcend: Many serious meditators consider the trademarked version of this style to be the pinnacle of meditation techniques. The internet has a ton of free guides to help you “transcend” while meditating.

• Pray: There are infinite possibilities with prayer. 

Journaling

While young officers in the military, Jay and I were recommended countless times by senior leaders to journal so that we would remember the tactics that worked and the ones that didn’t. The idea was to learn from our experiences so that we would become more effective leaders. Journaling is now our preferred technique to reach higher levels of self-awareness and track our progress. 

The challenge for many is that they don’t know how to journal. This was the case for both of us. Journaling can take on many forms and if you google journaling, you will find all sorts of color-coordinated, beautifully written diaries with flowery sentences. In reality though, you don’t need to do any of that. Just grab a notebook or open a text document on your phone or computer, and simply write down your thoughts. Brain dump and word vomit your thoughts onto your notebook. 

Feedback from Others

If you want to optimize your performance in anything, you need feedback. Getting input on your own thoughts is no different. Journaling can help you hone in on the items you want to talk to other people about. Then you can ask your best friend or partner for their opinion on the subject. Some of the best feedback you can get on your thoughts might come from a professional. Just like seeing a doctor for your physical health annually, it is a great idea to regularly check in with a pro who can give you feedback on what you’re thinking. Finally, coaches are a great resource to help you specifically with getting in the right mindset to achieve your goals.

I also could use your feedback. My goal is to make this newsletter as valuable as possible for you. Please let me know if you find some of these mindfulness techniques useful or if you have any recommendations based on what works for you. Also, let me know if there are any topics I can write about for you.

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Our limiting beliefs, overwhelming opportunities to make poor choices, poor habits, and unhealthy friends compromise our ability to optimize our health. Our autopilot software defaults to our limiting beliefs and taking the easy way out. 

Here are some common beliefs and excuses that keep people overweight, with low energy, and lacking confidence in their health. 

I don’t have time.

I don’t have access to healthy food or a gym. 

I don’t have anyone to hold me accountable.

I don’t want people to stare at me.

I’m big-boned.

I’m too old, my ship has sailed.

I don’t see the point, I am going to die anyway.

I don’t have the willpower and self-discipline.

I don’t know what to do.

And the top reason people don’t workout or eat healthy is…

I can’t afford it. 

Yet people waste money on subscriptions and new iPhones instead of a mattress and curtains that will help them sleep better, a gym or sports club membership that they might actually use, pre-mixed vegetables, or the doctor appointment they need. The truth is that the above list is a bunch of made-up excuses. When you hear someone say, “I don’t have time and I don’t have money,” what you really hear is, “It’s not a priority.” We all have the same number of hours in our day. 

Why do people default and subscribe to these ideas? It’s in our genes to avoid pain and take the path of least resistance. Our brains are wired this way, and autopilot will take us right back to the comfort zone. With the abundance in our society, it’s just a lot easier to take the easy path and not do the HARD things. It really is shocking how some people take such pride in maintaining their car but they don’t do the same for their own body. Unlike a car that you can swap out or upgrade, your body is the only vehicle your soul can move around in for the rest of your life. 

There are two things that will put your body out of commission: fast death and slow death. Fast deaths are from accidents, infectious diseases, and injuries. It should be straightforward how to avoid the fast deaths. Over a decade of research has been done by Dr. Peter Attia and his team to avoid the slow deaths. He even wrote the most comprehensive book on the subject titled Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity. Attia explains that slow deaths are typically due to what he calls the four horsemen of chronic disease: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease or metabolic disease (aka “diabeetus” or “the sugar”). The odds are overwhelming that you will die as a result of a slow death, and specifically one of these chronic diseases. 

Attia recommends the following five tactics for avoiding a slow death: 

1. Exercise

2. Sleep

3. Nutrition

4. Medication and supplements

5. Emotional health

Exercise is the number one way to be healthy and increase your longevity. Attia even says that exercise is “by far the most potent longevity drug.” The other tactics don’t even come close to being as effective.

Still, a lot of people look at exercise as just a chore. The mere word “exercise” has a lot of negative connotations. I like to think of it as movement instead. Exercise really just means moving your body, and this should be a staple in your daily routine. The simple activity of movement boosts your energy, self-confidence, thinking, and your mood. Moving should be something you enjoy and look forward to each day. The problem is that the overwhelming majority of people are not doing enough of it. The chart below from Dr. Christopher Centeno is based on data from the Copenhagen Heart Study in Denmark and shows that we need to consistently move at least a few hours a week if we want to optimize our health. 

You want to be lower on the y-axis, which represents a hazard ratio. This is a measure used in survival analysis to compare the risk of a negative event happening to you. Lowering your hazard ratio through exercise reduces risk of mortality and improves overall health. As you go from left to right on the chart by consistently putting in hours of exercise each week (without overdoing it), you can lower your hazard ratio. More simply put: the more you move, the longer you live. So get out outside, get a little sun and move.

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At the interview I had to ask the question that I was the most worried about, “How do you go from not biking at all to riding for over 10 hours a week?”

The team captain promptly responded, “It’s not as hard as you’d think. You’ll ease into the habit of riding for an hour each day, fast. It’s easy. You’ll start out riding 60 minutes a day, then 90 minutes, and before you know it the two hours of biking will feel like nothing.” I was surprised and looked at the faces of the other upperclassmen on the interview panel beside him. Apparently just sitting on a bike every day was the recipe for becoming a fast cyclist. His confident answer to the question made the process seem effortless. He must be right then. Sitting on and pedaling a bike for hours at a time, day after day looked superhuman to me. I guessed all those guys on the Tour de France built up to it somehow, and now I figured it had to be possible for me too.

They formally accepted me onto the team. Each day after classes ended I would rush to change and meet the team’s new recruits at the indoor, stationary bikes in the corner of the cadet gym. We would ride for 90 minutes each day while staring at the wall in front of us. This would be our training schedule for the next few weeks while we waited for our bikes to come in. The sweating from 90 minutes of riding an indoor bike was out of this world. Every day we would leave with a giant pool of sweat underneath where each of us had sat. We wiped down the bikes afterward, but the pool of sweat stayed. I doubt anyone else used those same stationary bikes in the evening after the ponds were left to stew each day. 

The first few days were exhausting. It did not feel great for the butt either. Training indoors was miserable, pedaling away on a bike that didn’t move while the sweat fell all over you, without much airflow to help dry you off. Yet we kept going to the gym, just four freshmen guys and me. The indoor training was a pretty miserable experience and not the best way to start off your time on a new sports team. Yet the conversations with my new teammates and my hope to get my new road bike soon kept me going. The urge to keep up with my teammates pushed me to show up every day and pedal the bikes in the gym that don’t even move. The reward was going to eat dinner together with your teammates after each practice. After doing this for a few weeks, the daily grind of pedaling became a habit. 

Eventually, all of our road bikes that we ordered arrived. At the end of class each day at 4PM we would rush down to the team room to change out of our “as-for-class” uniforms into our white, black and gold Army cycling team uniforms. We hopped on our bikes and rode all over West Point and the surrounding training areas, towns and cities. This was our escape from the gray, prison-like confines of the military academy. We biked up and down every single hill and mountain by West Point along the Hudson River. It was a beautiful and exciting way to escape the stressful and monk-like existence of being a cadet. 

The winters were even somehow bearable while training with the cycling team. December to February at West Point is known as the “gray months” and are quite depressing. Being in upstate New York, the winter is dark and cold. In those months, you can’t do much outside because of the freezing wind that will cut through your uniform. This time always brings a few attempted suicides among the 4000 or so cadets. The winter and boredom is just too much along with all the other stressors involved with being a cadet. Afternoons with the cycling team and training in the hallway outside the team room offered a refuge. Our team trained for almost two hours every day on rollers or trainers that we would set our bikes on top of. We always put a big fan and a TV and at the end of the hallway to stare at as we pedaled our afternoons away. Some cyclists would listen to music from their MP3 players, and others tried to hold slow conversations between heavy breathing. These long workouts gave us something HARD to do, a challenge each day to keep us motivated to get through the winters and back out onto the road to race. I figured I’d be racing up mountains and passing the pros soon.

Little did I know that it usually takes about four years to produce elite cyclists. Day after day of showing up, pedaling millions and millions of circles at least slowly built us into competitive collegiate cyclists. Each year we had a road racing season for about two months. During that time, we competed in multiple races each weekend. That’s when we saw how we measured up to other cyclists. The desire to win those races each year fueled our motivation and our habits. The practice of biking for six or seven days a week for a few years propelled us to podium at multiple national championships. 

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The first event for the conference championship was a team time trial, and the second one on Saturday was a long road race out in the mountains of Pennsylvania. On that Sunday, we competed in a criterium race with a quick, mile-long loop that weaved through the poorly paved streets between Pennsylvania State University’s sorority and fraternity houses. Our men’s and women's teams raced across several different categories for that Sunday's races. The points from each of the three races would add up to decide where we finished the season and if we would qualify for the national championship. 

The Army Cycling Team actually finished the season with a decent performance. We didn’t end up winning the conference championship though - the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team won, but we finished toward the front of several races. Plus we qualified a team of both men and women to go compete at the national championship. Done racing for the year, I was sad that it was over. I didn’t accomplish my goals of placing in the top 10 consistently in races, but I was happy that I had improved drastically during my first season with the team. I went from crashing during my first race to consistently finishing with the peleton. What I didn’t fully understand was that the team had a much larger goal: to win the national collegiate cycling championship.

Our team’s results within the conference were probably below what they could have been if our focus was the conference championship. The training program our coach designed was supposed to completely exhaust us a few weeks before the national championship. Still, our fastest cyclists had a few weeks to recover. The plan was to peak in early May for nationals. So a couple weeks after the conference championships, our nationals team went off to Fort Collins, Colorado. We knew that MIT likely had the best team in the nation, but we thought we might still have a chance at beating them. 

The Army Cycling Team went out and raced well. Yet some of the men did not perform at their peak level. They had overtrained early on in the season and were not at their top performance. Their individual goals were not aligned with the team goal. They had focused on winning single races and shining throughout the season. Maybe they didn’t dream big or believe that they could win as a team at the national championship. The Army Cycling Team did end up winning fourth place overall. But what would they have accomplished though if their goals were aligned and laser focused on winning nationals? Are you focusing on your big goals or putting too much effort into short-term wins that hold you back?

Jay Tiegs, my best friend from the Army, and I are writing a book on high performance frameworks to help people maximize their performance and crush their goals. Our hope is to empower others to become Goal Crushers. We don’t want you to fall short of your full potential. The step-by-step tactics we use and recommend are:

1. Make a bucket list. Getting all of your biggest dreams written down on paper or saved in a file is the first step. Keep these stored in a safe place and come back to them when you feel low on motivation.

2. Organize Your Goals. Sort your goals into the HARD lines of effort: Health, Affluence, Relationships, and Development. Then organize them by when you realistically would like to achieve each goal.

3. Triage Your Goals. Unfortunately, not all goals will make the cut. You only have so much time, so prioritize each one and identify the top two or three big goals you are going to focus on now.

4. Make Your Goals SMART. Define your big goals so they’re specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound. Make a feasible timeline with milestones that will keep you on track.

5. Identify High Yield Activities. For each goal, determine where you will have the most leverage for focusing your time and effort. What small things can you do that will make big results?

Once you’ve made a clear plan to achieve your top goals, then you can focus on the details and discipline of crushing them. Clarity on your big goals and how you will accomplish them allows you to move forward with confidence. This is the mentality of a Goal Crusher.

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I was jolted awake at 2AM in a pitch black room from what felt like a hot knife twisting in my elbow. Immediately, anger and confusion overwhelmed me. My left hand was already stuck in a cast, and I didn’t know where I was. After fumbling for the light switch with my good hand, I saw that my elbow above the cast had blown up to the size of a softball. I was alone and slowly began to remember that I was back in the basement of my Airbnb in Galveston, Texas and had only gone to sleep a few hours earlier. My mind was stunned by the fact that the Airbnb was a three hour drive away from my doctor in Austin, Texas. 

For several months since leaving the Army I had been working remotely and trying to keep myself entertained by traveling. My body had finally reached its limit after being treated like garbage as I was hopping around short term rentals and hotels. I was struggling to keep up with working remotely, trying to find time to cook and exercise, and learning to code in the evenings. The monotony of sitting behind a screen all day had pushed me to keep moving to new Airbnbs and to take up speed skating. I thought that going to the beach in Galveston and spending a little time outside would keep me entertained. But my adventurous spirit had come with a cost - a broken wrist within the first few days of starting the new hobby. I likely rebroke it a couple times before finally taking some time away from work to see a doctor. That led to a wrist surgery and then apparently this infection in my elbow. 

I dragged myself into my Honda Civic and started the painful drive to Austin, Texas. I wanted to find some medical care I could trust that was in my insurance’s network. However, I couldn’t think clearly and didn’t realize that there were several decent hospitals between Galveston and Austin. My left elbow was still killing me and I couldn’t even rest it on the armrest of the door without sharp pain shooting through my whole arm. Fortunately, my post-surgery purchase of a knob attachment for my steering wheel let me drive with just my right hand. Still, the three hour drive with just one arm wouldn't be the smartest or safest. 

The blurry lines of the interstate were moving all over the place. As I drove I started to realize that it wasn’t just the pain that was fogging my mind. My whole body ached and I felt like I wasn’t mentally all there. I was sick. A year of prioritizing work over health had reduced me to a shadow of my former self. Hours upon hours spent hunched over a computer working, coding, and studying for IT certifications had left my skin an unsettling shade of pale. If you’d seen me sitting in front of my laptop before my elbow had exploded, you’d think you were looking at a lanky ghost with the worst posture, typing away on a split keyboard with the left half rotated awkwardly to accommodate a casted hand. 

So there I was, a mess, driving down a road in the middle of the night, halfway conscious. Somehow, I eventually made it back to Austin as the sun was rising. I went to an emergency room and even saw my primary doctor later that morning. A couple rounds of strong antibiotics helped the infection and swelling to subside a few days later. I finally conceded to my boss's earlier advice, requesting a leave of absence from work - I really should have listened to her earlier. It was a heavy decision because I worked on a strong team with some impressive coworkers whom I respected and didn't want to disappoint. This was after I had just left the Army for joint injuries as well. The way I was raised and the training I got in the Army had brought me up to work hard, prioritize others first, and avoid seeing a doctor at all costs. Yet I finally gave in. As my body screamed for a break, I swallowed my pride and began the slow journey to recovery.

I spent the next few months doing tons of physical and occupational therapy, getting some vitamin D and contemplating what to do with my life. My 33rd birthday was approaching, and I didn’t have a family of my own or even know where to call home. For almost 20 years, I had been constantly moving. Life in the Army, with its chaos, had suited me - a new job every year or two, traveling around the world, moving homes almost every year, and deployments and month-long training exercises mixed in. The idea of settling down into a corporate job seemed more like a necessity than a desire. Still, I knew I had to find a place to call home and just be content.

During the long and boring months away from work, I grew stronger, both physically and mentally. I reconnected with family and soul-searched for what I truly wanted to do with my time. The numerous sports injuries I'd collected were a stark reminder that my health had to be a top priority. Leaving the Army had left me without purpose and directionless, but slowly, I began to see a new path. I saw a future where I could start my own business, work alongside my family and friends, and truly value my time instead of habitually sacrificing it for others. I wanted to continue to challenge myself and help people. However this time, I would do it my way. In the solitude of my recovery, clarity emerged. I realized that life wasn't about appeasing others but about finding your own purpose and your own path.

Jay Tiegs, my best friend from the Army, and I are writing a book titled Life on Offense to help you avoid making the same mistakes that we did. The book explains our high-performance framework to find clarity in your life and achieve your own big goals. Getting clear on your vision is the first step in our framework. Clarity brings direction and focus to our lives, providing a solid foundation to achieve our goals. Without it, we wander aimlessly, making choices that don't align with our true selves. If you value clarity and striving for excellence, you can subscribe to the Life on Offense newsletter as a guide to help you on your path and stay up to date on our book’s release.

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While some beliefs propel us forward, others function as barriers to our potential. People commonly refer to these beliefs that hold us back as limiting beliefs, but I call them bullshit beliefs because they are usually unfounded. This article tells two inspiring examples of how overcoming these types of negative beliefs can lead to extraordinary achievements. Additionally, I’ll share practical tactics that have helped me overcome the bullshit beliefs that held me back from a life on offense.

Roger Bannister and the Four-Minute Mile

In the early 1950s, the consensus in the athletic community was that running a mile in under four minutes was humanly impossible. This bullshit belief was so pervasive that it was considered a physiological limit, not just a mental barrier. Enter Roger Bannister, a British middle-distance runner with an unconventional approach to training and a growth mindset.

On May 6, 1954, Bannister did the unthinkable. He ran the mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds. Within a year, several other runners also broke the four-minute mile, proving that it was never an insurmountable physical limit but a psychological one. This achievement, now known as the "Bannister Effect," demonstrated that perceived barriers could be broken, empowering countless others to aim higher. 

Sophie Power’s UTMB Story

Fast forward to 2018, when ultrarunner Sophie Power defied societal expectations and medical advice by competing in ultra-endurance events while pregnant and postpartum. Her participation in the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), one of the most grueling ultramarathons globally, while stopping to breastfeed her infant, captured the world's attention.

Power made international headlines after finishing the 107 miles in 43 hours and 33 minutes. What made her an ultramarathon legend was that she competed only three months after giving birth! A photo of Power breastfeeding her son, Cormac, at an aid station 48 miles into the race went viral online and made global news headlines. In the photo, she’s sitting in a chair at an aid station using a breast pump with one hand and holding her son while breastfeeding in the other. On the floor next to her, a male runner is laying on his back with his feet resting up against a wall.

Overcoming Bullshit Beliefs

These runners’ stories exemplify overcoming limiting beliefs imposed by societal norms. Roger Bannister crushed a made-up time barrier and Sophie Power challenged the prevailing notion that pregnancy and athleticism are mutually exclusive. In 2023, UTMB updated their policy to allow pregnant women and their partners to defer entries for up to five years. Stories like these remind us that there are still other common beliefs out there that are holding us back.

Here are seven tactics you can use to overcome beliefs that aren’t serving you:

1. Do HARD Things

Attempting challenging tasks can prove to yourself that you are capable of more than you think. HARD stands for:

Health

Affluence

Relationships

Development

Setting a daily goal in each of these categories will propel you to doing the HARD things that you want to accomplish. Whether it's running a marathon or learning a new skill, pushing your boundaries helps dismantle bullshit beliefs. 

2. The BEAR Cycle

Beliefs affect Emotions, which influence Actions, that determine your Results. You have the power to change how you think and act. Making this cycle work for you leads to positive outcomes and overrides bullshit beliefs.

3. Identify Your Emotions

Understanding your emotional state is crucial. You can use tools like the Abraham-Hicks Emotional Guidance Scale shown below to identify where you are emotionally and work towards more positive states. The goal is to move up the scale to the smaller numbers associated with more empowering feelings.

4. Positive Affirmations

Use present-tense statements that reflect your desired reality to shift from negative to positive emotions. For example, "I do HARD things" can replace "I can't do this." Sophie Power and Roger Bannister likely had their own affirmations or mantras stating that they could run a 3:59 mile or finish an ultramarathon. 

5. Identify Your Triggers

Recognize what triggers negative thoughts and emotions. You can use physical or imagined doorways as triggers to reset your mindset and prepare for new experiences. When meeting with different people, imagine moving to a different room to refocus on effectively communicating your ideas and emotions to the specific person you are speaking with. Each event on your schedule should also help you plan to get your mind right for switching tasks.

6. Redirect Your Energy

Change your behavior or environment to disrupt negative thought patterns. Activities like meditation, exercise, or even a change of scenery can help reset your focus on what matters. Redirecting your energy is the go-to tactic for when you need to change your mindset immediately. If you’re in a bad situation you can’t get out of, sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and refocus on solving the problem at hand or just surviving.

7. Create New Beliefs

Use the RACED framework to develop empowering beliefs. These steps reverse engineer the BEAR cycle shown in the second tactic from above:

1. Result Identification: Define the outcome you desire.

2. Action Assessment: Determine the actions needed to achieve this result.

3. Current Emotion Analysis: Assess your current emotional state.

4. Examine the Limiting Belief: Identify the belief holding you back.

5. Develop a New Belief: Create a new, empowering belief.

Jay Tiegs, my best friend from the Army, and I curated the above tactics to help people move past their bullshit beliefs and accomplish their goals. Together, we are writing a book titled Life on Offense: Do HARD Things, designed to equip you with practical tools like these. Sir Roger Bannister and Sophie Power's stories motivate us and serve as compelling reminders that our limitations are often self-imposed. We hope their stories inspire you as well and that our tactics provide you with actionable steps to break through your own barriers and achieve your goals.

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During our time as lieutenants, we biked and ran all over the military post and competed in several ultra endurance races together. Jay became my best friend, even though he’s several years older than me. In Army years, he was already an old man when I met him. Now Jay’s a retired major and high-performance coach, still living in the middle of nowhere in Missouri. 

As we both left the Army, Jay and I wanted to take on a challenge together again, but we weren’t sure what it would be since we lived on different continents. After brainstorming for several months, we eventually started writing a self-help book at the beginning of 2023. The manuscript is now titled Life on Offense: Do HARD Things. It’s actually shaped into quite an impressive piece of writing, and we’re still editing it to make the book even better. For those of you who haven’t already met Jay, let me introduce him to you.

Siegfried “Jay” Tiegs was born into a rough home. His parents had a difficult time raising him due to some challenging problems of their own. Jay’s father had an inability to form positive relationships, stemming from the traumatic loss of his entire family in Germany during WWII. His father created an unstable and abusive home for the family. Jay’s mother, who immigrated to California in the 1950s, struggled with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His mother’s conditions were exacerbated by her husband's abusive behavior.

Jay's childhood was split between Southern California and Germany, where his family moved in a bid to stabilize their finances. Despite their efforts, economic challenges and his father's temper only worsened their situation. At a young age, Jay realized he needed to escape his not-so-great circumstances. He began working at 12 years old, taking on jobs like mowing lawns and delivering newspapers to earn money and find his way out of the family’s makeshift double-wide mobile home.

Driven by a desire for a better life, Jay joined the military after high school. His dedication and hard work allowed him to rise to the rank of sergeant first class, serving as a combat engineer in Hawaii, Iraq, and later as a recruiter in Saint Louis. It was here that he became a father to triplet daughters, who inspired him to commission as an officer and strive to be the best Dad and role model possible.

Jay's military career spanned 27 years, during which he commanded two specialized companies at Fort Leonard Wood, training the next generation of leaders. After retiring from the Army, Jay's commitment to excellence didn’t go away. He transitioned into multiple roles, including certified high-performance coach and leadership trainer, running coach, realtor, college professor, podcaster, and founder of Do Hard Things Nation. His mantra, "Do HARD Things," encapsulates his belief in overcoming challenges with persistence and dedication.

Jay's story is about a powerful transformation and how to stay focused on what really matters in life. Now, as a motivational speaker and high-performance coach, he shares his insights on personal and professional growth, helping business owners and leaders achieve their goals. Through his relentless focus on doing HARD things and helping others, Jay continues to guide people towards success. 

Through his coaching and public speaking, he has helped countless individuals overcome their challenges. Jay’s down-to-earth approach and practical advice make him an invaluable resource for anyone looking to make big changes in their life. 

To know more about Jay, you can check out his website at JayTiegs.com and the self-development community he is building at DoHardThingsNation.com.

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How do you avoid the things that keep you on defense? The first step is to identify the SHIT holding you back:

Scarcity

Habits that suck

Internal conflict

Toxic relationships

If there were four horsemen for a life on defense, SHIT would be what their horses left behind after they trampled over you. Now that you know what not to step in, let’s dig a little deeper into this SHIT. 

Scarcity 

Not having what you need for success or not even knowing where to start is a huge problem. Scarcity holds you back from making offensive plays. It is often just a mindset that keeps you feeling like you are continuously fighting for survival, as if there is never enough of anything. For example, tons of studies have shown that the stress of debt and financial worries can lead directly to mental health problems like depression and anxiety. Stressing and worrying over scarcity, real or imagined, can affect your relationships because you feel like you can’t afford to do the things you want to. So you isolate yourself, which leads to loneliness and worse depression. 

Another big resource problem is the inability to gain new skills and knowledge. Let’s break this down mathematically:

Ability x Effort x Time = Results 

Without the ability to climb out of a hole you fell into, you'll stay stuck down there on defense no matter how much or how hard you try to get out. Your ability is the raw potential that helps you to accomplish your goals and move on to your next milestone. Lucky children have great parents who guide and teach them how to live successfully. As an adult, you have your support group, plenty of content available online, and access to coaches who can help you achieve your goals. If you forget about these resources or are afraid to sort through them, you can get stuck in struggle mode thinking you have no ability. You can end up just reacting to life as it happens, instead of creating systems that improve your life and help those around you.

Habits that Suck 

We all have bad habits that hold us back. Many of these habits are avenues to avoid the pain we feel in our day to day life and offer an escape. Alcohol, substance abuse, sex, pornography, poor time management, unhealthy relationship management, the inability to delegate, not planning ahead, procrastination, not prioritizing, the inability to say no, etc. There are too many to list; you have to identify your own bad habits. 

Internal Conflict 

Internal conflict comes in a variety of different flavors: negative self-talk, pessimism, lack of confidence, mental barriers, insecurity, unresolved past trauma, overwhelm, perfectionism, etc. These feelings and emotions can strike your mind at the most inopportune moment. These little ankle biters grow over time to become bullshit beliefs that further push you into a corner and keep you on defense. 

Toxic Relationships 

The obvious things that keep you playing on defense are external. Your support network or lack thereof is the most powerful influence. When people give you advice or feedback, it sticks in your head. The values, expectations, and commonly held beliefs of those around you can keep your mind in that box that is hard to come out of. Closed minded people, who influence you to live in ways that do not allow you to maximize your potential, can be toxic. Bad habits from those around you can also rub off and put you into a defensive mode where you’re trying to fight addictions or bad behavior that eventually become a part of who you are. 

Your family, friends, people you see on a regular basis, and your society or culture all have a huge impact on how you think and act. We all grow up around people who expect us to behave a certain way and some people who believe we have limitations. These societal expectations and pressures evolve to keep us working together, but they don’t work for everyone. The bottom line is that the people you choose to be around will profoundly shape your life.

The Solution to SHIT: Do HARD Things 

To create and maintain the life that you want, you have to do HARD things. 

My best friend from the Army, Jay Tiegs, and I created a framework to help organize your life and overcome the SHIT that holds you back. HARD stands for:

Health

Affluence 

Relationships

Development

These four concepts form the foundation of a book we are writing. Our manuscript is titled Life on Offense: Do HARD Things. The book’s purpose is to empower others to live intentionally and dominate the challenges they face. Jay and I have seen too many people who think that they are stuck in a  monotonous, hard life and that they are victims of their own circumstance. Sadly, the people we listen to are right.

It can be hard to just get out of bed in the morning, day after day. It’s also hard to build a physique you’re proud of. You’re sore after a good workout session. Your joints hurt. 

It’s also hard:

• Being overweight and unable to fit into your clothes

• Not having money and scraping by paycheck to paycheck

• Just surviving in a broken, sexless marriage

• Lacking education or not having an employable skill

Yet we can easily get comfortable staying overweight or living paycheck to paycheck. We forget what it’s like to feel as energetic as we were as a child. We would often rather suffer and embrace misery than change our condition. We will live in bad circumstances that we get comfortable with, and we get used to living in difficult situations that we could fix. Sadly we forget, or don’t believe, that we CAN improve all aspects of our life when we choose to. 

You get to choose your hard. 

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