Not many people aspire to be weaker, do they?
Yet, how many are willing to do what it takes to be stronger?
Physically, emotionally, mentally.
More capable.
Requires doing things many are unwilling to do.
Risk Failing
You don’t get stronger lifting a puny weight.
In the same way you fail to get stronger doing things that are easy for you.
We get stronger doing hard things that challenge us.
Push us beyond our old limits.
You test the capacity of a truck by loading it up and seeing where it buckles.
And us humans must test our limits the same way too.
Sadly, terrified of buckling, many of us fail to risk getting stronger.
Avoiding Failing
In one of my favorite books, Napoleon Hill, author of one of the bestselling books of all time, has an imaginary conversation with the Devil.
This Devil in Hill’s book isn’t one with horns and forked tail.
But a negative force.
Negative energy that infiltrates our minds and messes up our lives.
A key theme in the book is drifting—how the devil in our brain gets us to avoid what most matters.
Resist our grandest goals.
Resist taking action.
Distract ourselves with noise.
Waste our precious life energy on useless things.
Drifting, many of us fail to even get started, let alone fail to persist and succeed.
Drifting To Failure
In one exchange Hill asks the Devil—
“Tell me some of your other tricks with which you cause people to drift in life.”
“One of my most effective devices is failure!” the Devil responds.
“The majority of people begin to drift as soon as they meet with opposition, and not one out of ten thousand will keep on trying after failing two or three times.”
Hill replies, “So it is your business to induce people to fail whenever you can. Is that correct?”
“You have it right,” says the Devil.
“Failure breaks down one’s morale, destroys self-confidence, subdues enthusiasm, dulls imagination, and drives away definiteness of purpose.”
Or, It Can Make You Stronger…
N-now th-that that don’t kill me
Can only make me stronger
You get to choose, right?
Do you drift?
Avoid those things that truly matter to you?
Or do you go for it with all you’ve got?
And if you face that thing others call failure…
Only use it to make you stronger?
Here’s 27 mins from the Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger Masterclass on picking up anvils that make you stronger: