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Personally, I'm always happy when something is hard. Why? Because I know that most people won't do what it takes; therefore, it will be easier for me to step in front of the pack and take the lead. I love what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said so eloquently: "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge." When you press on despite difficulty, tedium, and hardship, that's when you earn your improvement and gain strides on the competition. If it's hard, awkward, or tedious, so be it. Just do it. And keep doing it, and the magic of the Compound Effect will reward you handsomely.

Embrace constraints "I DON'T HAVE enough time/money/people/experience." Stop whining. Less is a good thing. Constraints are advantages in disguise. Limited resources force you to make do with what you've got. There's no room for waste. And that forces you to be creative.

pain as nature's reminder that there is something important for me to learn. Encountering pains and figuring out the lessons they were trying to give me became sort of a game to me. The more I played it, the better I got at it, the less painful those situations became, and the more rewarding the process of reflecting, developing principles, and then getting rewards for using those principles became. I learned to love my struggles, which I suppose is a healthy perspective to have, like learning to love exercising (which I haven't managed to do yet).

The unsuccessful person interprets the failure or setback as a career breaker and concludes, "I'm no good at this." The successful person sees each setback as an opportunity to gain whatever additional knowledge is necessary to accomplish her goals. The internal dialogue of a successful (or eventually successful) person is more along the lines of "I thought I knew everything I needed to know to achieve my goals, but this has taught me that I don't. Once I learn this, I can get back on track."

Learn to treasure your worst experiences as gripping (if traumatic) new chapters in the epic novel that is your life.

the understanding that your personality and character are not fixed but can be shaped and strengthened by overcoming difficult experiences.

So when faced with a difficult task or challenge, give yourself an immediate competitive advantage by focusing on all the reasons you will succeed, rather than fail. Remind yourself of the relevant skills you have, rather than those you lack. Think of a time you have been in a similar circumstance in the past and performed well. Years of research have shown that a specific and concerted focus on your strengths during a difficult task produces the best results.

Long before I had a lot of money, I had determined that I wanted my sons to have only enough to afford excellent health care, excellent education, and an initial boost to help their careers get started. My perspective was influenced by my own journey through life, which took me from having nothing to having a lot. That taught me to struggle well and made me strong. I wanted the same for the people I loved. So, when I had earned a lot of money, I felt I had plenty of money to give away to others.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. - Helen Keller

A bad day is a good day. Earn the good times. Embrace Type 2 Fun. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

The idea is that by choosing to think of the bad things that happen to us as being funny rather than outrageous, an incident that might have angered us can instead become a source of amusement.

I can't stress this enough, but pain is part of the process. It's important to feel it. Because if you just chase after highs to cover up the pain, if you continue to indulge in entitlement and delusional positive thinking, if you continue to overindulge in various substances or activities, then you'll never generate the requisite motivation to actually change.

Shoot for the moon. Set yourself an outrageous goal. Just do it. Make it harder to ignore your dream than to overcome the risks and obstacles. Failing is an acceptable and unavoidable fact of life. Giving up easily need not be. Keep taking one more step and you might be surprised how far you go. You are the only person who controls your potential. Everything is up to you. The choice is yours. A bad day is a good day. Earn the good times. Embrace Type 2 Fun. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Be brutally honest with yourself. Do you believe your own excuses? Does this year matter? Then use it. Think like a goldfish. Do not think about the end. Focus on the next step to keep you moving. Take care of yourself. Physically and mentally. Being fit feels good. A healthy mind in a healthy body. The world is a good place. Trust. Smile. Boldness and relentless passion will be rewarded.

Simple one for me to answer: "Storms make us stronger." If I had one message for young people embarking on life, it would be this. Don't shy away from the hard times. Tackle them head-on, move toward the path less trodden, riddled with obstacles, because most other people run at the first sign of battle. The storms give us a chance to define ourselves, to distinguish ourselves, and we always emerge from them stronger.

It is a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one's limits, which is painful. As Carl Jung put it, "Man needs difficulties. They are necessary for health." Yet most people instinctually avoid pain. This is true whether we are talking about building the body (e.g., weight lifting) or the mind (e.g., frustration, mental struggle, embarrassment, shame)--and especially true when people confront the harsh reality of their own imperfections.

life is the obstacles. There is no underlying path. Our role here is to get better at navigating those obstacles. I strive to find calm, measured responses and to see hindrances as a chance to problem-solve. Often I fall back into old frustrations, but if I remind myself, this is a chance to step up, I can reframe conflicts as a chance to experiment with solutions.

failure is not the opposite of success but a steppingstone to success.

never let a good crisis go to waste. It's the universe challenging you to learn something new and rise to the next level of your potential.

View painful problems as potential improvements that are screaming at you. Though it won't feel that way at first, each and every problem you encounter is an opportunity; for that reason, it is essential that you bring them to the surface. Most people don't like to do this, especially if it exposes their own weaknesses or the weaknesses of someone they care about, but successful people know they have to.

Most of life's greatest opportunities come out of moments of struggle; it's up to you to make the most of these tests of creativity and character.

Pain + Reflection = Progress.

'Accept and Adapt'

Pursuing your ambitions, especially those of any magnitude, can be grueling and hazardous, and produce agonizing failure along the way, but achieving those goals is among life's most gratifying and thrilling experiences. The ability to survive and overcome the former to attain the latter is a fundamental difference between winners and losers.

MY FIVE DOS FOR GETTING BACK INTO THE GAME: 1. Do expect defeat. It's a given when the stakes are high and the competition is working ferociously to beat you. If you're surprised when it happens, you're dreaming; dreamers don't last long. 2. Do force yourself to stop looking backward and dwelling on the professional "train wreck" you have just been in. It's mental quicksand. 3. Do allow yourself appropriate recovery--grieving--time. You've been knocked senseless; give yourself a little time to recuperate. A keyword here is "little." Don't let it drag on. 4. Do tell yourself, "I am going to stand and fight again," with the knowledge that often when things are at their worst you're closer than you can imagine to success. Our Super Bowl victory arrived less than sixteen months after my "train wreck" in Miami. 5. Do begin planning for your next serious encounter. The smallest steps--plans--move you forward on the road to recovery. Focus on the fix.

When the inevitable setback, loss, failure, or defeat comes crashing down on you--losing a big sale, being passed over for a career-making promotion, even getting fired--allow yourself the "grieving time," but then recognize that the road to recovery and victory lies in having the strength to get up off the mat and start planning your next move. This is how you must think if you want to win. Otherwise you have lost.

'Humans don't mind hardship,' Junger writes, 'in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary.'