Consciously Choosing How You Start Your Day

The first hour of your day defines how the next twenty-three play out. But for most people, that hour isn’t sacred; it’s boring.

And I get that. We’re just getting out of our slumber. Our thinking is fuzzy, and we would rather return to our warm bed than do anything else. In those moments, the last thing we want to do is something challenging or uncomfortable.

But that’s exactly why they matter.

If we can be resilient and stick to a simple, yet empowering morning routine, we’ll train our minds on a simple paradigm: “I am the controller of my life, not my mood.”

And that perspective will define how we move through the rest of the day: with calmness, certainty, and healthy control. (AKA Resilience).

Prioritizing Everyday Learning

If you don’t learn, you won’t grow.

And if you don’t grow, you won’t become better, stronger, healthier.

And if you don’t become better, stronger, healthier, you won’t become resilient.

The logic is simple, and so is the cycle.

Pick any area of your life where you want to become more resilient. Then, start learning. Grab a book, listen to some podcasts, talk to people, go out and learn through experiences, do anything you’d like, but make sure you’re learning at least one new thing each day.

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes each day, but over a year, it makes you grow so much that you become unrecognizable.

The gods of compounding are ready to work in your favor. Please allow them to do so.

Finding Comfort in the Uncomfortable

Here’s an experiment. Go to YouTube and look for interviews of the people you admire—those who’ve achieved extraordinary feats in their respective fields. (And if they lived in a world before technology, read about them.)

If you listen or read carefully, you’ll notice a pattern in how they describe their life and work.

While many people have a strong disdain for discomfort, they revel in it. Where others see a barrier, they see an opportunity. When others back down because it’s too hard, they double their efforts and unlock incredible, non-linear success and growth.

And it’s not that they don’t feel scared or overwhelmed—they do. In fact, given the magnitude of the challenges they face, they probably feel it more than the rest of us. But instead of letting that fear and uncertainty back them into a corner of safety, they use it as fuel for growth.

For them, discomforting challenges aren’t a barrier, just the fair price to pay for the achievements they unlock. And that changes everything.

This fact alone might be overwhelming you, but there’s good news in store. You don’t need a special gene to think this way; you just need to reframe your mindset to find comfort in the uncomfortable. That’s easy.

Being Kind to Yourself

If there’s one big myth people have about resilience, it’s that you need to be ‘hard’ on yourself to build it. The most common metaphors we hear are:

• Forged like iron in a fire.
• Pressure builds diamonds.
• Rising from the ashes.
• Extraordinary results demand extraordinary efforts.

All of them are true. But they’re not the ONLY truth.

A life lived on those dictums will certainly make you big. But will it make you happy? I have my doubts.

Resilience isn’t just about strength, but also about restraint. Truly resilient people live happy lives because they can show up with incredible, diamond-like strength when it matters, and show up with kindness, love, and respect.

They don’t change themselves for the sake of it. They don’t chase perfection. Instead, they embrace their imperfections with love.

It’s time for a new metaphor—one that shows resilience in all its shades, not just the strength. The Japanese call it Kintsugi.

When a vase, bowl, or other piece of pottery breaks, the Japanese don’t collect the pieces and throw them away. Instead, they bring the broken pieces together and line them with gold.

The result is a beautiful and uniquely designed vase or bowl that looks EVEN better than before. The very cracks that destroyed the vase became its distinctive characteristic. That’s the power of Kintsugi.

The cracks make it whole; the imperfections give it beauty.

Just like that…

Our cracks make us whole; our imperfections give us beauty.

Resilient people recognize this truth and become their own Kintsugi artists. They are kind, self-accepting, and loving. That’s what allows them to become whole and strive with strength towards their goals.

The lesson here is simple: Be kind. 

You’ll be surprised by how powerful that makes you.