
Today's message partly has to do with consistency.
I want you to take a second to think about the sun. The sun is always going to come up—it's going to show its face no matter what the weather looks like. It might hop behind some clouds, and you might not be able to see it, but the sun always shows up just the same.
I like to think of my life as that sun always showing up.
Maybe I can't shine as bright some days, but I can always show up. What's helped me develop this mindset, this perseverance, and this resilience, is what I want to share with everyone today.
You've got to have the mindset of building.
Everything I've built has been build through grief. It's been built through loss, and it's been built through hard times. It's been build through struggles and confusion and failure. It's been build by mistakes and by difficulties. Most of all, everything I've built has been built through consistency.
Let me tell you something: Everything can work for you. If you can put in the consistency, you can use anything to build you up. When you've got that growth mindset and you've realized this truth, everything will start coming together. Everything can lead you to a place that no perfection or total control can lead you to.
The storm has its purpose.
Without the storm, we wouldn't have any scenery. Without the heavy rains that fall on our backs until we want to throw in the towel, we wouldn't have flowers. I want you to think about that right now. Maybe you're going through a great time in your life, and maybe you're going through a hard one. Either way, I want you to appreciate the storms in your life.
Strength is progression, but what a lot of people don't understand is that forward movement happens whether you're coasting through a valley or struggling up a cliff. Storms will come on their own—we don't have the power to prevent them. The only power we have is the power of perspective. The only power we have is choosing how to deal with our trials.
Oftentimes, the only way past is through. You've got to go through hardship in order to get to the other side. You've got to be willing to tread cold water, and you've got to be willing to give in exchange for receiving. You've got to fall in love with progression, even when it doesn't feel like an easy thing to love.
Strength feels like struggle at first. Courage feels like conflict in the beginning. Building starts out as breaking.
Today's lesson is to stop running from struggle, and to stop running from conflict, and to start running from your life when it feels like it's falling apart. If you're running from those things, you're running from progress. The journey isn't always easy, but you've got to push through, anyway.
It all starts with you.